


Actual Wolf Derek Hale

by lovelornwolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drunk Stiles, Full Shift Werewolves, M/M, Top!Stiles, bottom!Derek, lost wolf Derek Hale, passing discussion of hypothetical child abuse, scenes of mild torture, some non-consensual sniffing and licking, useless potato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:23:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 29
Words: 60,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornwolf/pseuds/lovelornwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is almost done with the bottle of whiskey when the dog wanders—limps—out of the woods towards him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU where no one knows about werewolves yet (or do they???) and at least some of them undergo a full shift.
> 
> The violence warning is for future chapters. Non-con for non-consensual sniffing and licking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Oh god I forgot to mention that this was kindly beta'd by the incomparable cadignan I am such a terrible person. :(((((

Scott had run off—too broken up about his breakup to even wallow in misery properly with his best friend—which is why Stiles was alone in the woods that evening.

Well, alone except for the mostly empty bottle of Jack.

Stiles was doing some wallowing himself. His best friend being in a relationship was new, and Stiles was not entirely sure he enjoyed it, since it meant a whole lot less Scott-and-Stiles hangout time and a whole lot more Scott-thinking-about-his-stupid-girlfriend time, and Scott-talking-about-his-stupid-girlfriend time, and Scott-texting-his-stupid-girlfriend-when-he-was-supposed-to-be-hanging-out-with-Stiles time.

He had tried to look upset when Scott had said she’d dumped him, but he wasn’t sure he really was that unhappy. And that made him feel like a shitty friend, not to mention the worst, most selfish person in the world, which is why he’d gone overboard trying to help Scott drink away his feelings out in the woods at all.

“Thanks, dude,” Scott had said, holding the bottle uncomfortably. “But this isn’t what I need right now.” And then he’d left—“I think I’ll just walk back to town”—and Stiles had sat there alone for approximately two seconds before shrugging his shoulders and taking the first swig of shitty whiskey.

Shitty whiskey for a shitty friend.

The dog came limping out of the trees about an entire bottle’s worth of time later, favoring its right foreleg as it picked its way across the rocky clearing Stiles was slumped in. It stopped ten or so feet away and whined.

“Hey, boy,” Stiles said. “Boys?” He wasn’t sure if there was one dog or two. He closed an eye, which helped. “You hurt, boy? Let’s—”

His first attempt at getting up was unsuccessful, which seemed to upset the dog. The whine became a low, warning growl. He tried to freeze, but that didn’t work either, and he toppled heavily onto his side, the bottle of Jack smashing decisively on the rocks.

“Ugh, party foul, dude,” Stiles muttered, staring at the small puddle of glass shards and whiskey, and the bottle neck clutched in his right hand.

The dog was still growling.

“Chill boy, calm down, it’s all right—“ He held out a hand and the growl turned into a full-on snarl that promised nothing good for Stiles, or his throat, if the hand got any closer. “Whoa, boy, that’s—that’s a lot of teeth.” Stiles blinked and refocused his eyes. He swallowed.

The dog was a wolf, and the wolf was not happy.

* * *

“Dude, you gotta get back here. I’m being menaced by a wolf. And I think it’s hurt, it needs help, but it won’t let me get near it and, well, it won’t let me run away either—not that I’m convinced I could run, or get up, I’m kinda plastered—“

Stiles was used to leaving incoherent voice messages on Scott’s phone, but he had really hoped this would be one of the times his friend actually picked up.

“Anyway, I’ll—I’ll be here, I guess. Waiting for you to listen to this message and come keep your best friend—your drunk best friend—from having his throat torn out by a wolf with a broken leg. Or a sprain. Or a hurt foot. Not exactly sure what’s wrong with its leg, but it does not like stepping on it. Yeah. So. The sooner the better, Scott.” He hung up and went back to trying not to look in the wolf’s direction.

The wolf stopped snarling when Stiles put the phone away. It sniffed the air, then lay down awkwardly on the rocks. He thought it was staring at him, but he was afraid to make sure.

He was holding the broken bottle neck casually in his lap. Out of sight so it didn’t seem like a threat, but convenient in case he had to try to fend off the wolf if it got angrier, or decided it was hungry, or whatever. He placed his other hand on the rocks, out in plain sight, a few inches in the wolf’s direction. The snarl came back for a second, then disappeared again.

He sat like that for minute, then, without seeming to pay attention to anything, he shifted an inch closer to the wolf, which flinched back and bared its teeth again. He resolutely looked down at his lap, away toward the trees, at the rocks by his knee, until the wolf calmed down again.

An idea was forming in his head. Of winning the wolf over, nursing it back to health, letting it . . . live in his back yard?

Another inch or so closer. Another few minutes of waiting nonchalantly while the wolf got used to his new position. He swayed and blinked and smiled at it with as much friendliness as he could muster.

The wolf let him get within five feet, and then refused to allow him any closer, standing up and snarling and snapping viciously whenever he tried.

“Okay, okay, chill, we’re chilling, calm down boy, it’s okay, everything’s all right.” He tried to make himself look as small and harmless as possible. The wolf was still growling, but only barely.

His phone rang, which seemed to startle the wolf into momentary silence.

“Dude, there aren’t any wolves in California,” Scott said.

“There is at least one,” Stiles said. “Trust me, I’m looking at it.” The wolf chose that moment to snarl at him again. “And at all its healthy, strong, sharp teeth.”

“Was that a snarl? Holy shit,” Scott said. “There really is something there. I just thought you were drunk.”

“I am drunk,” Stiles said with dignity. “But I am also being threatened with evisceration by a wolf. They are two not-incompatible things that are happen to be happening—that are _currently_ happening to me at the same time. At this same time. Right now.”

“I’ll take the car. Don’t move,” Scott said, and hung up.

* * *

The wolf hadn’t liked Stiles moving, or looking at it, or getting up, or lying down, but it _really_ did not like Scott being there, or doing anything at all. As soon as it heard Scott’s footsteps it darted clumsily past Stiles and turned its growl/snarl back on full force. Scott stopped at the edge of the trees and stared at them: Stiles sitting quietly on the ground, the wolf taking short, threatening rushes in Scott’s direction and almost foaming at the mouth with rage.

“Dude,” Scott said, but he shut up when the wolf gathered itself like it was going to spring.

“Stop looming,” Stiles hissed. “You’re making it feel threatened.”

The wolf turned back and snapped at him, and it was so close he felt the spray of saliva on his arm. He shut up and held very still. The wolf went back to menacing Scott.

Scott looked quickly away and down and hunched his shoulders. The wolf immediately dialed the aggression back about two notches, which meant it no longer looked like it was about to go for Scott’s throat any second, but still looked like it was thinking about it.

“Wait,” Stiles said. “Let it calm down.” Another snap from the wolf, but it was almost perfunctory. Also: the wolf did not calm down.

“Try moving closer, a little at a time,” Stiles suggested.

“Closer?” Scott’s voice was thin and strangled. “I’m getting ready to make a run back to the car.”

This was enough for the wolf. It ran at Scott, and Scott took off. The wolf only chased him a few yards before turning back to Stiles. Scott did not stop or look around, though, just disappeared back into the trees.

So much for best friends.

The wolf was circling Stiles now, almost close enough for its flanks to brush him. He got the bottle neck ready in his right hand in case it rushed him, holding the jagged glass against his thigh. It was snuffling, sniffing his hair—oh god—sniffing his face, his neck. Dog breath everywhere. He tried not to choke.

Now it shoved its nose into Stiles’s belly, then—of course, why didn’t he see this coming—right into his crotch.

“No.” Stiles said, pushing its head away. “That’s enough.”

He was expecting to lose a hand, but the wolf didn’t seem upset. Instead it took a limping step onto his lap and lay down, flopping full-length half-on, half off Stiles’s legs.

Oh dear god.

“There’s a good boy,” he whispered, wishing his voice hadn’t gone up a full octave. He put out a trembling hand and—with just two fingers—lightly touched the wolf’s back. When it didn’t seem to notice he let his hand rest on its flank. And when that elicited no response he began to pet it, ever so slowly and gently. It huffed, and he froze, but it just settled even more heavily into his lap.

Its fur was matted and full of dirt and leaves. Stiles didn’t know how wolves cleaned themselves normally, but he thought this level of unkempt-, uh, -ness probably meant it wasn’t doing well. He scratched the wolf behind the ears, dislodging more grit and dead skin. It smelled like the filthiest dog he’d ever run into. Filthier than this it did not seem possible for a creature to get, and live.

“Man, you are _rank_ ,” Stiles said. “You are a dirty, dirty puppy.”

Hopefully Scott was getting backup, or Stiles would be here all night. Or until he or the wolf expired from hunger. Or boredom. Or filthiness.

* * *

 He was still petting the wolf’s clotted pelt absently. Gradually he felt the animal relax, and after a few minutes it was snoring and whiffling grotesquely.

"Aw, who's a tired puppy?" Stiles said. "Wait, are you—drool. You're drooling on my leg. I thought your smelly hide was bad, but this—this is worse. Wolf spit. I'm going to need therapy for this, you know. Did you think of that? No, you just thought, here's a comfy human pillow I can fall asleep on and DROOL ALL OVER.”

The wolf cracked an eye open and _whuffed_ at him admonishingly.

"At least you're not humping me," Stiles muttered. "I can be thankful for that."

"Stiles?" Someone was calling his name from out in the woods.

"STIIIIILES!!!" More than one someone—and that last one sounded like the sheriff.

"Dad?" Stiles waved his arms. "Over here!"

"Stiles???"

The wolf snorted and lifted its head groggily. It huffed a couple times and then went into pure, tense alert mode, its nose pointed in the direction of the voices.

"Wait, calm down—" Stiles tried to soothe the wolf with his hands but it ignored him, shouldering its way awkwardly off his lap, a growl rumbling in its chest. "Dude. Stop it. No one's gonna hurt you." He knelt next to the wolf and put his arms around it. "It's okay. It's okay. Everything is fine." He patted its flanks and rubbed its head. "Come on. Come on. Look at me." He tried to turn its head but it shrugged him off.

The sound of people trampling through the underbrush sent the wolf into a frenzy of snarling and snapping. Stiles's dad appeared at the edge of the clearing and came to a sudden halt, hands raised in front of his chest.

"Whoa," the sheriff said. "Calm down, take it easy—Deaton!" The last word he threw over his shoulder. "It's okay it's okay—" He took a step out into the rocky clearing.

The wolf obviously did not think it was okay, but this time, instead of rushing the threat head-on, it threw itself backwards against Stiles, almost knocking him over.

"What the fuck—"

The wolf snapped at him and he jumped back.

“Whoa, it’s okay, it’s okay—“

Another lunge from the wolf. Another step back away from his dad and the other people who were stepping into view. A couple deputies, Scott, Mrs. McCall—and Dr. Deaton, the veterinarian.

Stiles was standing now, trying to keep from being herded out of the clearing by the wolf. "What are you _doing_ , are you trying to protect me? You stupid, stupid—" The wolf's shoulder hit his legs again, accompanied by an annoyed snarl. "Okay, okay, backing up, I'm backing up, away from my rescuers—hi Dad, do something please?—it's fine, let's go hide in the woods where we'll be safe, sound good?" The wolf backed up with Stiles, always staying between him and the search party, a warning growl still sounding in its chest.

"Come on, someone, I've gotten a little attached to this guy, yes, even though he's a grumpy controlling _asshole_ —" (the wolf shoved him another step backwards; they were nearly in the trees) "—but I'd really appreciate not spending the rest of my life running through nature with him, if that could be arranged—"

There was a sharp _thwip_ , and Stiles barely had time to notice the dart sticking out of the wolf's neck before the animal wavered and keeled over. Dr. Deaton lowered the tranq gun and smiled calmly at Stiles.

* * *

Stiles was following Scott and Dr. Deaton out of the clearing when his father took his arm. He gestured at the broken bottle neck Stiles was still holding.

"Don't think I haven't noticed that," his dad said.

Stiles looked down at his hand. "Noticed what? Oh, this! Yeah, I'd forgotten about the weapon I fashioned in order to keep myself from being mauled by a wild animal. Thanks. Sometimes I surprise even myself."

His dad ignored this. "Don't think I also haven't noticed that you can barely walk in a straight line."

"You know, shock is a genuine medical condition," Stiles said.

"Shock. Right. So tell me, what were you doing out here in the woods in the first place?"

"Oh, just thinking, just having a conversation between myself and the—the wind. Good old introspection. You know me."

His father squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Stiles, no one will be sorrier than me if it turns out you are suffering from shock, but . . . You’re grounded. For the next three days— _if not more,_ ” he added when Stiles opened his mouth. “Go straight home. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

“Uh. How?”

“How what?”

“How do I get home? I don’t think I’m good to drive yet.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow.

“Because of my genuine medical condition, by which I mean I am in shock. Much too shocked to drive.”

They were back near the road by now. The sheriff hailed Scott, who came ambling over as soon as the unconscious wolf was stowed in the back of the van.

“Scott, would you mind taking my . . . incapacitated son home?”

“Uh, yeah. I mean, no, no problem. Sure.” Scott gave the sheriff and grin. “C’mon, Stiles.”

* * *

“That wolf sure was something, wasn’t it?” Stiles said when they were on their way.

“Yeah, it was. I thought I was a goner.”

“You thought _you_ were a goner.”

“Well, and I was worried about you.” Scott looked over. “You know I came back as fast as I could, right? I was on the phone with your dad before I even got back in the car, and he said to phone Deaton, and Deaton said he’d be right there, and then I thought I should bring my mom, in case you were hurt—“

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault the wolf hated you on sight. Or that you ran away screaming like a two-year-old.”

“I did not.”

“Okay, maybe you only screamed once.”

Scott punched him in the shoulder, but not very hard.

Stiles punched him back. “So what are you doing after you drop me off?”

“Deaton wanted me to come help him prep the wolf for the exam.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think your dad would want me to come hang out anyway. Right?”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. I was just wondering whether the wolf is going to be any trouble.”

“Well, it’s sedated—“

“Right.”

Scott tapped his fingers on the wheel. “You want to come, don’t you.”

“I’m feeling kind of attached. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t, because I’m sane. And sober.”

“Please? I’ll tell my dad it was my fault. I pressured you. I whined and I wheedled and pawed you drunkenly until you gave in.”

Scott was making a strangled noise. “RRRRRrrrrrrggghh—okay. But it is your fault, and if you get grounded for three more days, it’s on your head.”

* * *

When they got to the clinic, Stiles sent Scott in first to scope out the lay of the land. He came back out almost immediately.

"You're fine, come on, your dad's in the office with Deaton." Scott led him into the exam room. "Just, I don't know, stand inside the door. That way it'll take your dad longer to notice you."

The wolf was still out cold, now sprawled loosely across the veterinarian's examining table. Scott got to work washing and prepping its injured leg, but Stiles wished he would take time to wash the rest of the animal, because indoors the smell was indescribable. Or wait, no, how about this for a description: it was like the wolf had eaten something rotten, puked it up, and then rolled around in the resulting soup. Stiles rarely lacked for words; it was a gift.

Deaton and his dad came in then, and Stiles got very busy trying to be invisible.

"I'm worried about its behavior," the sheriff said. "It wasn't acting normally." He paused. "Was it?"

"I would expect a wolf to avoid humans, it's true," Deaton said. "But its behavior doesn't make me think of rabies, either. Perhaps it has had contact with humans before—maybe humans even fed it in the past."

Deaton bent over unconscious wolf, palping and prodding its body.

"See right here?" Deaton was pressing on the wolf's leg on either side of a nasty-looking wound. "There's something still in there—Scott, forceps please." Scott passed him what looked like a pair of heavy-duty tweezers. Deaton probed the wound for a minute, the forceps clicking on something, before he pulled out a gory shard of metal, about an inch long. He rinsed it under the sink and held it up. "I can't say for sure but . . . possibly silver, or silver plated." He seemed thoughtful. "Scott, get me a bandage."

"Where would a wild animal stumble across something made out of silver?" Stiles's dad sounded confused.

Deaton had the leg bandaged in about two seconds. There was a slight furrow in his brow as he looked down at the wolf.

"Is he going to be okay?" Stiles asked.

The sheriff spun around. "Stiles! What are you doing here?"

Stiles ignored him. "Is he going to be okay?" he repeated.

Deaton glance between Stiles and his father before responding. "That depends," Deaton said.

"On what?"

"On how long this silver splinter was in his leg," Deaton said. "And whether any silver leached into his bloodstream."

"Like, he could be poisoned?" Stiles asked.

"Well, generally silver exhibits low toxicity but . . ."

". . . but?"

"But nothing, really. I just need to monitor him, see how he's reacting. That's all."

Stiles gave his dad his best smile. "Can he stay with us while he's recovering?"

"No, Stiles."

"Come on! He likes me."

"a) I'm not so convinced of that, b) I'm pretty sure he _doesn't_ like me and c) he needs the kind of care we can't provide. So no. He can't stay with us. Oh, and d) YOU’RE GROUNDED.”

The wolf began stirring.

"The tranquilizer, Scott, quick."

There wasn't any period of grogginess this time—one second the wolf was twitching on the table, the next it was launching itself at Stiles's face.

* * *

The wolf's solid weight slammed into Stiles's chest, and then he was on the ground, the wind knocked out of him. His throat was still intact, though. This was a positive thing, since—if he ever got his breath back again—he would at least be able to use his lungs.

When he finally was able to inhale, the wolf was standing over him, growling at his dad, Scott and Dr. Deaton.

"Son," the sheriff said. "Son, are you all right?"

"Ugghhhhhh," Stiles groaned. "Uh. Yeah, I gue—WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

The sheriff's gun was out and pointed straight at the wolf's head. "Trying to keep us all safe," he said. "Now I need you to get up and back away from the wolf."

"No. No way. What about tranqing him?"

"The tranquilizers are . . . out of reach at the moment," Dr. Deaton said.

"Maybe the wolf would let Stiles get them," Scott said. "Stiles! See if you can grab the box of tranqs. They're on the counter right behind you."

Stiles got up on his knees. "I'll see what I can—OOF."

The wolf had decided to ram its shoulder as hard as it could into Stiles's belly.

"Guys, I don't—I don't think he likes that idea."

"Get out of the way, Stiles." The sheriff's gun was still trained on the wolf.

"Dad. No. Hold on, okay?" Stiles laid a hand on the wolf's flank. "Hey there, buddy. How ya doing? Feeling better? I can tell! Yes, you're doing so well! There's a good boy." Now Stiles had his arms wrapped around the wolf's neck.

"STILES!"

The wolf snarled and tried to lunge for the sheriff, but Stiles hung on. "No, nope, we won't be doing that, we're going to calm down—look at me—and we're going to take it easy—no, no, I'm right here, look at me." He was nose-to-nose with the wolf, one hand pressed to the side of its muzzle to keep it from staring the sheriff down. “Chill, dude. Chillllllllll." His other hand was massaging the wolf's shoulder.

The wolf's growl had gotten confused, raising in pitch until it was much closer to a whine.

Stiles raised his voice slightly. "Everyone out. I need everyone else to get out, you're upsetting him."

No one moved.

"Son—" the sheriff began.

"I said, GET OUT."

He didn't look as the others circled slowly around the table and slipped out the door, but he had the impression his father was being herded along by Deaton rather than going of his own will.

"You." Stiles said to the wolf. "Stay. There." He scuttled to the door and closed and locked it. His dad immediately began banging on it and ordering him to open up, but he ignored him.

He went back and hugged the wolf. "That's it, everything's okay," he said, rubbing its neck. It swiped a wet tongue across his face from chin to brow and he fell back, gagging. "Oh god, dude, that is so gross, I thought your breath was bad—"

The wolf tried to push close to lick him again, but Stiles held him off. It whined, butting at his arms with its head, so Stiles wrapped his hands around its muzzle.

“New rule: no more licking. Okay?”

He gave it a peck on the nose. A second later the wolf was a full-grown man who was pulling Stiles in by his wrists and kissing him back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

"Holy god what the fuck." Stiles launched himself backwards, his head colliding with the exam table hard enough for him to see stars. "Oh ow. Ow ow ow owwwwwww."

An instant later he was wrapped in a powerful hug and someone—some incredibly smelly person—was licking the bump on his head.

"What? No! Stop!"

He struggled, but the stranger was very strong, and now there was growling going on and he remembered that the stranger was maybe also a wolf and then Stiles decided to hold very still.

"Fine. Okay. Lick me. Lick away. I just want to go on the record as saying that I am a non-consenting party. This interaction? NON-CONSENSUAL."

The strange man had stopped growling and was now rubbing his face against Stiles's cheek—which, when was the last time this guy had shaved and could you say MASSIVE STUBBLE BURN—snuffling and sniffing under his chin and—yup, licking.

"Um. Wow. That is a new sensation. I'd always wondered—ohhhhhh my god are those your teeth."

They were indeed teeth, but the man was only nipping playfully at the sides of his neck and, all in all, Stiles found that maybe he wasn't quite as against this interaction as he'd initially thought. In fact, although literally no one was ever going to know this, he thought he might be getting hard.

Which is when he decided it was time to put on the brakes. He managed to pry one of his arms loose and shoved a hand in the man's face.

"Okay, that's enough, you've had your snuggle and your one-sided makeout session, now it is time—" Stiles gave the man a sharp karate chop on the nose. "—to LET GO."

The man sank back against the cupboards, hands over his nose and a pitiful expression on his face.

"Yeah, you’re right, I'm so mean, I'm the worst ever, you hate me, et cetera, et cetera. But I think before we move on to any of the other bases maybe we should, you know, get to know each other first."

The man's hair was dark and tangled and his skin was gray and filthy. But his eyes were a piercing hazel-green, and those cheekbones could chisel granite. He was gorgeous, and also naked. Very naked.

Stiles looked away from the nakedness and cleared his throat. "Uh. So. I'm Stiles. We've met, kind of, but . . . you looked a little different at the time. Hairier and not so . . . penis-y." It kept drawing his eyes. No! Bad Stiles!

"Stiles?" Dr. Deaton called. "Are you all right? We can't leave you in there with a dangerous . . . animal."

"Just a second," Stiles shouted back.

"...Stiles," the man said.

“Hey, that's right, that's me. What's your name?"

The man's mouth worked, but nothing came out. Stiles could see that he was shaking.

"It's okay, that's fine, take your time. Just relax, breathe. Everything's all right." Stiles found himself squatting next to the stranger, rubbing his back soothingly. The man took this opportunity to bury his face in Stiles's neck again. At least there was no licking this time. He could feel tension slipping out of the man's muscles.

The man mumbled something against Stiles's shoulder.

"What was that?"

"Derek," the man said.

"Huh?”

“Derek,” the man said again.

“Oh. That's you. Derek. You're Derek. Okay.” He smiled. “Nice to meet you, Derek."

"Stiles?" Scott this time. "Bro. Let us in. Please. We grabbed some tranqs from the other room, so the wolf won't be hurt, I promise."

"Hold on for just another second, jeez, I'm busy in here." Stiles pulled back and looked the man—Derek—in the eye. "Okay. So, I hit my head pretty hard there, but I could have sworn I hit it _after_ you had turned from a wolf into a human. Am I right? Although come to think of it if I _am_ imagining things then you're probably a figment of my imagination and your confirmation can't be relied on and oh god I did not want to end the night with a traumatic brain injury."

"Yes," Derek said.

"Yes?"

“Yes, I was. Am.” He swallowed. “Wolf. Human. Both."

Stiles realized his mouth was hanging open. "Okay. I guess you understood me, even if I’m not sure I did. Er, understand. Anything.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "Now I need you to listen to me. In about five seconds, my dad is going to break down that door, and I don't know what he's going to say or do when he finds you here."

Derek's eyes went wide. "Will he . . . shoot? With a gun?"

"I won't let him," Stiles said. "But you need to make a decision. Do you want to stay here as a wolf, or go to—I don't even know, the hospital maybe?—as a human?"

"No," Derek said. "Stay. With you." And then he was a wolf again.

A second later, when the sheriff kicked the exam room door open and burst in, gun out, right on time, he found his son sitting on the floor, petting a very sleepy-looking wolf, both of them looking up at him with far-too-innocent eyes.

* * *

When he saw the sheriff, Derek-the-wolf tried to growl, but Stiles cut him off with a firm look and a "Shhhhhhht!"

“You can put your gun away, Dad," Stiles said. "Everything's fine. He'll behave now."

“What’d you do, hypnotize him?” his dad asked.

“Har har har. No, I just treated him with kindness and respect.” Stiles rumpled the wolf’s ears. “WHO’S a good wolf? Is it you? Yes it is! You’re just a sweet, cuddly ball of fur, aren’t you.”

Derek-the-wolf did not seem ecstatic at this treatment, but he endured it with only an annoyed huff.

"You two appear to have quite the understanding,” Dr. Deaton observed. "Would you mind helping us get him in a crate? It's obvious I miscalculated the dose of tranquilizer, and I would prefer not to overestimate by mistake."

"Oh," Stiles said. "Yeah, no, let's avoid giving him an overdose. I like him the way he is: grumpy, overbearing and _alive_.”

The vet gave him a quiet smile. "He's strong. I doubt it would cause permanent damage, but of course the risk is always there. And I wouldn’t like having to explain the death of California’s only wolf to the Department of Fish and Game.”

“Wait, what?” Stiles and Derek-the-wolf were both looking at Deaton now. “Department of Fish and Game?”

Deaton nodded. “I’ve already notified them of the capture. It’s standard procedure. They’ll be here tomorrow, probably to collar and release him.”

Stiles looked at the wolf, and the wolf looked at Stiles.

“I, er. I don’t think he would like being collared,” Stiles said.

“It’s not our decision, son,” the sheriff said. “He’s not a pet, he’s a wild animal. Now come on. Unless you’d prefer we tranq him again?”

“I’ll think of something,” Stiles whispered in the wolf’s ear. Then he jumped up. “Here, Derek,” Stiles said, patting his thigh. “C’mon buddy! Let's get you bedded down for the night. This way!”

Derek-the-wolf got up and trotted after Stiles.

"'Derek'?" the sheriff said, an eyebrow raised.

"Uh, well, I had to call him something," Stiles said.

"Yeah, but _Derek?_ "

"Like you have any room to criticize _my_ naming choices," Stiles shot back.

“Touché,” he heard his dad mutter.

Scott led them to a utility room, where he had already placed a large animal crate. "We'll put him in here for the night," he said. "Don't want to freak out the other animals."

Derek-the-wolf went into the crate fairly willingly, but when Stiles went to shut the door he began howling and whining and yipping and throwing himself against the walls and trying to bite at the breathing holes.

“Derek. It’s okay,” Stiles said, pulling the door back open and kneeling at the entrance to the crate. “Calm down. Come here, give me a hug, it’s okay _it’s okay_ —“ and he threw his arms around the wolf’s neck and listened to the panting and wheezing subside. “Now, listen to me. You go in there and go to sleep. I know you’re tired. And tomorrow morning, bright and early, I’ll be back here to see you. Can you wait for me? Can you sleep and relax and be safe—you’re _safe_ in here—and trust me? When you wake up, I’ll be back. Right here. I promise.”

The wolf licked Stiles’s neck and hung his head, but he went and curled up in the very center of the crate. Stiles closed the door.

“See ya, Derek,” Stiles whispered. “Sweet dreams.”

* * *

Stiles shut the utility room door, telling himself he didn’t hear one last pitiful whine from the crate. He looked at Scott.

“So. Need a ride?” Stiles asked.

“The question is, do _you_ need a ride?”

“No, I’m good. I’m—“ he broke off, noticing his dad standing behind Scott. “—totally over the shock I was suffering. From my traumatic experience in the woods.”

“Your traumatic experience, right,” the sheriff said. “Well, if you’re not in shock anymore, you can drive your ass home. Where it will stay, outside of school, because you are grounded.”

“Dad! I have to come visit Derek tomorrow. I promised him!”

His dad gave him a look. “Son, promises made to an animal don’t count as actual promises. Now GO. HOME.”

Dr. Deaton put a hand on Stiles’s shoulder. “Stiles. It’ll be okay. Things will work out.”

“Right,” said Stiles. “Because things always work out so well.” He threw up his hands. “Fine, great, I’m going. Coming, Scott?”

Back in the Jeep, Scott was very quiet.

“Everything okay, dude?” Stiles asked after a minute.

“Stiles . . .” Scott wasn’t looking at him. “You know there’s a window in the exam room door, right?”

“Oh _shit_ ,” Stiles said. He tried to think back to what kinds of compromising stuff his best friend might have seen him getting up to with a _strange man_. Who just happened to be a werewolf or something.

“Yeah.” Scott cleared his throat. “I didn’t say anything, but—don’t you think, whoever that guy is, it’s something your dad should know about?”

“So my dad didn’t see?”

“No, he was pacing back and forth in the hall the whole time.”

Stiles waved the question away. “I’ll tell my dad if and when he needs to know,” he said. “What about Deaton? He see anything?”

Scott shrugged. “Might have. If he did he didn’t let it show.”

“In which case he might be telling my dad right now.”

“I’m not sure I’d worry about that,” Scott said. “Unless you think, uh, what was his name?”

“Derek.”

“Right. Unless you think Derek would transform for the two of them. Without proof, Deaton would just sound crazy.”

“Good point.” Stiles chewed on a thumbnail. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: you’re going to let me into the clinic tomorrow morning before Deaton gets there, and I’m going to set Derek free. No way is Fish and Game getting their hands on him.”

Scott snorted. “They aren’t going to torture him or anything. They’ll just tag him and set him free.” He frowned. “Although I don’t know if they’ll try to transport him out of state. There aren’t any wild packs in California.”

“And any of that would make Derek go completely nuts. You can’t do stuff like that to a _person_ , Scott.”

“Fine.” Scott sighed. “What time?”

“You tell me. What time does Deaton show up?”

“Well, the clinic opens at 7, but I always work after school, so . . . maybe 6?”

Stiles groaned. “I don’t know if I’m physically capable of getting up that early.”

“Earlier,” Scott said. “We need to be in and out before Deaton shows up, so you’d have to be up by, I dunno. 4:30?”

“Okay, new plan,” Stiles said. “We go back and stake out the clinic until Deaton _leaves_ —“

“I can’t,” Scott said. “I told Allison I’d Skype her tonight.”

“Wait, you two—“

“Just friends,” Scott said gloomily. “But you never know, right?”

Stiles pulled up in front of Scott’s house.

“Ugh. Okay. I’ll pick you up at 4:30. Be waiting outside.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm not quite satisfied with this but I'm going to let it go and concentrate on what comes next. Enjoy!
> 
> (Unbeta'ed.)

Stiles was making out with Lydia in his dream when his face started vibrating.

“Lydia,” he muttered. “How are you doing that with your _tongue?_ ”

It was really incredible. Full-face massage. She should patent that technique, he thought. And then move that technique a couple feet south . . .

Lydia’s incredible buzzing tongue turned into Stiles’s buzzing phone, which he’d set to vibrate and used as a pillow. He squinted at the screen. It was 4:45, and the phone was vibrating because Scott was calling, which meant his friend had been waiting outside for fifteen minutes already and was probably _really pissed_.

He rejected the call and sent a quick text: “omw. srry” before pulling on a hoodie, shoving his feet into his shoes and running out the front door. He paused when he noticed the police cruiser wasn’t there. Had his dad even made it home that night?

Five minutes later he was pulling up in front of the McCall house. Scott got in without a word.

“I turned the sound on my alarm off,” Stiles said by way of explanation. “Didn’t want to wake my dad. Turns out there wasn’t any need—he’s apparently still out patrolling or something.”

Scott hunched in the passenger seat. “Why did I agree to do this.”

“Because we’re bros, bro!”

His friend just snarled.

“You aren’t a werewolf, too, are you?” Stiles said. “You’ve got the snarl down cold. Have you been practicing?”

Scott grunted. “So what’s the plan?”

“Uh . . . you get us into the clinic, I get Derek out of his cage. What else is there?”

“Dude. Are you just going to dump Derek on the side of the road?”

“Well, no.” Stiles grimaced. “I hadn’t thought about that. He’ll need someplace to stay.” He looked at Scott and waggled his eyebrows. “Whaddaya say, bro?”

“What? You want a _wolf-person_ to crash at my house? Why can’t he just stay with you?”

“Because, in case you hadn’t noticed, my dad is the sheriff. Also he’s stupidly overprotective. And your mom is cool.”

“My mom will not be cool with me bringing a predator home with me. Especially a predator that wants to rip out my throat, and maybe hers too.”

“Come on. You can’t hold that against him, he was tired and confused. And, uh, feral. He’s doing better now!”

“Uh-huh. Right. No fucking way.”

"What about Allison's? They've got that whole big house. There has to be . . . I dunno, a guest room or something."

"I'm not asking my girlfriend—“

"Girlfriend?"

Scott blushed. "Yeah, we made up over Skype."

"That's great, dude."

"Yeah." Scott smiled blissfully. Then he shook himself. "That's not the point. The point is, there’s no way I’m asking her to take care of your _half-wolf boyfriend_.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Stiles said.

“Besides, their guest bedroom is full.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Allison’s aunt is visiting. Got into town sometime yesterday. It’s pretty much all Allison would talk about—apparently she’s like, the awesomest person ever.” Scott sounded a little gloomy.

“Cheer up,” Stiles said. “Maybe she’ll be on your side! God knows your star-crossed love could use some supporters in the Argent household.”

* * *

They were two blocks away from the clinic when they saw the flashing lights up ahead.

“Uh oh,” Stiles said.

“Please tell me that’s not the clinic,” Scott said.

“I wish I could tell you that. I really wish I could.”

Four squad cars, a fire truck and an ambulance were pulled haphazardly into the parking lot. As they got closer, they saw that the glass in the clinic’s front door was gone, and the door itself was half off its hinges.

“Guess I know where my dad got to tonight.”

“So what do we do now?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know,” Stiles said, driving straight on by. “I didn’t plan on someone else breaking into the clinic before we even got here.”

“Looks more like someone broke _out_ ,” Scott said.

“Oh shit you’re probably right.” Stiles imagined Derek waking up alone in a metal box, going berserk. “Oh god this wasn’t supposed to happen,” he moaned. “I promised I’d be back, you stupid wolf.”

He pulled into a dark side street and parked.

“What are you doing?” Scott said.

“What if it was just a regular break-in? What if Derek is still there, waiting?”

“Dude. That was not a regular break-in. The door was ripped off!”

“I just can’t take that chance,” Stiles said. “He trusted me. I’m sure he did. I need to make sure.”

“By doing what? Walking up to your dad at a crime scene and asking for an update?”

“No, by you sneaking me in through the back door so I can check the utility closet. Duh.”

“What part of _crime scene_ is not making it through your skull?” But Scott was still unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing out of the Jeep.

* * *

“Okay, my dad can NOT know we were ever here,” Stiles said.

They were crouched behind a planter at the edge of the parking lot, watching deputies and EMTs rush around.

“I don’t see how we’re gonna be able to do this,” Scott said. “The only other entrance is the garage, and even if they aren’t watching it that door is fucking _noisy_. We’ll never be able to get in that way.”

“What about a window?”

“Maybe,” Scott said doubtfully. “Most of them haven’t been opened in years, though. We might have to break the glass.”

“Let’s check around back, just in case.”

“Wait.” Scott pointed.

A pair of EMTs had just emerged from the building with a gurney and were trying to navigate around the broken glass and twisted door. The figure on the stretcher was completely shrouded by a white sheet.

“Shit,” Scott said, and then he was running. Towards the clinic.

“Oh jesus,” Stiles said, and took off after his friend.

“Dr. Deaton? Dr. Deaton?” Scott was shouting.

The EMTs had frozen and were staring as Scott bore down on them, but before he could actually throw himself on the gurney a deputy stepped forward and caught him.

“I have to see if he’s hurt,” Scott said. “Let me go!” He glared at Stiles. “If Derek did this, I’ll never forgive you.”

Stiles covered his face with his hands. _Please Derek, no._

The sheriff chose that moment to walk out of the clinic. When he saw Scott and Stiles he shook his head.

“Why am I not surprised?” he said. “Hello, Scott. Hello, son.”

“Is that Dr. Deaton?” Scott said, jerking his chin at the gurney.

“Calm down,” the sheriff said. “Dr. Deaton is fine—we called him, he’s on his way. This is a guy I’ve never seen before.”

“Derek,” Stiles breathed. Had he attacked the cops and been shot? “Can I see his face?” he asked. “I need to know who it is, I need to know if I know him.”

“Stiles, no—“

The sheriff tried to restrain him, but Stiles dodged. He shoved one of the EMTs out of the way and yanked back the sheet. Stiles’s mouth dropped open.

The corpse’s face was completely unfamiliar. Nondescript blondish hair, a scar next to the left eye. And a new set of four ragged, parallel slashes right across his throat.

“What did that?” Stiles said.

The sheriff grabbed him and pulled him away. “We don’t know what did this, and even if I knew I wouldn’t be discussing it with my sixteen-year-old son.” He crossed his arms. “Now do you want to explain to me what is going on? You know better than to invade a crime scene and—“ Words seemed to fail him for a second. He pointed a trembling hand at the gurney. “— _paw a corpse_.”

“I just—“

“Wait.” His dad held up a hand. “Why don’t you start with why you’re even here right now. At the animal clinic at 5:15 am.”

“I was worried about Derek,” Stiles mumbled.

“‘Derek’ is not your concern. I’ve called Animal Control, they know to be on the lookout.”

“What?”

The sheriff paused. “The wolf is gone, Stiles. We aren’t sure what happened, but . . . the door to his crate was open when we got here. And there was blood on the floor. Not much, just a couple drops. We think the latch might’ve been defective, and the wolf was able to get free. Maybe it cut itself getting out.”

“Oh god,” Stiles said. “I knew it. He woke up and I wasn’t there and he freaked out. And now he’s—” Stiles swallowed. “— _killed_ someone . . .”

His dad looked him askance. “Stiles, this wasn’t a wolf. You saw the wounds. They came from claws, not fangs.”

“Oh.” Stiles tried to act relieved, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Derek was hiding some Wolf-Man-style claws somewhere, perfect for ripping out throats with.

“Stiles . . .” The sheriff sighed. “Go home. We’ll have this talk some other time. Go home, go to bed, go to school tomorrow. And then come straight home. I haven’t decided what the consequences will be for this little stunt, but at least I can start by grounding you for another week.”

* * *

He dropped Scott back at his place.

“Sorry about that,” Stiles said. “I, uh . . . I hope my dad doesn’t tell your mom. No use your getting in trouble, too.”

“It’s okay,” Scott said. He shrugged. “We’re bros.” He glanced away and cleared his throat. “I, uh, I hope Derek’s okay.”

“Thanks, man.” Stiles rubbed a hand over his face. “I hope so, too.”

When Stiles got home he debated whether to go back to bed or just stay up the rest of the night. On the one hand, he was exhausted and he didn’t want to fall asleep in class. On the other hand, he was so full of nervous energy he wasn’t sure he could even lie down. He ate some microwave pizza and tried to watch TV, but all he could do was flip through the channels one after another in an endless loop.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll _try_ falling asleep, but if I’m still awake in thirty minutes I’ll . . . play XBox or something.” He went upstairs to his room. Flipped on the light—and froze.

His bed was occupied by a very naked, very dirty Derek. Who sleep-drooled in his human form as well, Stiles noticed.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some smut! A couple days later than I originally promised it but oh well.

“Derek. _Derek._ ”

Someone was saying his name. And shaking him. He curled away from the touch.

“Wanna sleep,” he whined.

He heard someone sigh.

“I know, you’re exhausted, and I sympathize, but right now your reeking carcass is smearing _filth_ and substances I don’t even want to contemplate all over my sheets.”

There was a pause.

“Which means you have to get up, Derek. And take a shower. And maybe tell me what _happened_ tonight.”

The shaking started again.

He lifted his head and snarled, letting his mouth fill with teeth and his eyes glow. The young man who had been shaking him let out a terrified yelp and leaped back. The air stank of fear.

That face and that smell … he sat straight up in the bed.

“Stiles?” Derek’s voice still felt scratchy, but the words were coming out more easily. “I’m sorry. I was dreaming. I didn’t know it was you.”

Stiles gave him a half-smile. “It’s okay. Not the first time you’ve snarled at me.”

“Sorry,” muttered Derek again, and hung his head.

He felt a tentative hand pat his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” Stiles said. “So you get grumpy when you’re woken up. I know that now. I’ll keep it in mind, poke you with a stick or something instead.”

Derek looked up and saw that Stiles was grinning at him. He felt a smile quirk his own mouth. It felt strange, but good all the same.

“Alrighty then,” Stiles said. “A shower sound good?”

Derek nodded, and Stiles held out a hand. His smell was right again, and Derek felt a rush of want. Want for closeness, want for pack. He reeled Stiles in and kissed him.

After a second, Stiles pushed him away.

“Wow,” he said, looking away, his face red. “Yeah. You really like kissing, don’t you?” He rubbed a hand over his short, cropped hair. “Uh, maybe we can try that when you don’t smell like rotten wolf vomit?”

Derek sniffed himself and grimaced. There was no vomit smell, but his nose filled with the stench of fear and despair and pain that had collected on his skin for several days. “Yes,” he said. “When I smell better.”

“Great.” Stiles motioned. “This way. Shower?”

* * *

Derek needed to be shown everything—how to get in the shower, how to turn on the shower, how to not scald himself in the shower. And once the water was the right temperature, all he seemed to want to do was shout silently at the shower head.

By that time, Stiles—along with the rest of the bathroom—were just as wet as Derek, and the whole point was that Derek get clean, right? which did not seem to be happening. So Stiles stripped down to his boxer briefs and hopped in.

The shower seemed much smaller than usual with all of the werewolf’s bulk and muscles and nakedness happening, but Stiles just set his teeth resolutely and began washing everything he could reach. Derek hated the shampooing, but he didn’t seem to mind having his neck and shoulders and back washed (and Stiles tried not to think about how much he didn’t mind washing Derek’s very naked, very shapely body).

“Okay, turn around,” Stiles said, giving Derek’s shoulder a tug. “Gotta wash your chest. Your pecs. Your pectorals. Pec-to-ralllls. Pectoralis major.” He made himself stop. It was hard.

Derek was hard, too, he noticed. _Nope, not seeing that, that is not happening, NOPE_. Stiles started scrubbing the werewolf’s chest, looking only straight ahead, not glancing down, not glancing up.

“Do I smell better now?” Derek said, and then he was leaning in to kiss Stiles. There was no pretending that wasn’t happening, with stubbly werewolf all up in his space, werewolf tongue in his mouth, werewolf lips against his. Hard werewolf cock pressed into his groin.

Stiles pulled back. “Are you sure—do you want this?”

“Do I want what?” Derek looked puzzled.

“You definitely have an adult body, but I’m not sure you’re even completely human in your mind. Can you—are you capable of consent?”

“I consent,” Derek said, and he was kissing Stiles again.

Warm water washed over Derek’s shoulders and Derek was licking Stiles’s neck, biting and suckling, and Stiles was so hard inside his boxers he thought his dick might break.

“As for me, I am definitely underage,” he said.

“Shhhhhhhhhh,” murmured Derek against his skin. “Just be here with me.”

Derek’s tongue against his chest, circling a nipple, then Stiles felt his underwear was being shucked off, the sodden fabric bunching at his knees, his cock free only for a second before an impossible warm mouth devoured it.

He didn’t mind that the wall of the shower was still cold, or that he might be bruising himself as he fell back against it, back arching and knees almost buckling. Derek’s hands were spread across his buttocks, gripping and massaging them, spreading them to brush his hole, and Stiles was all the way inside Derek’s mouth, the werewolf’s lips a tight ring at the base of his cock, he was clutching Derek’s tangled hair—half-clean, the shampooing hadn’t gone well, it would probably all have to come off—trying to shoving himself down Derek’s throat.

No one but him had ever even touched his dick before, and now here he was with the most beautiful person he’d ever even seen and that beautiful mouth, that tongue, the slide of lips against the head of his cock before Derek enveloped him again. It was almost too much and then it really was too much and

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna come,” Stiles gasped and somehow Derek sucked him down even more firmly and his orgasm slammed him forward, grunting and on fire and Derek swallowed every drop.

A minute later he came back to himself, crouched on the floor of the shower, panting, Derek’s arms around him, Derek’s voice murmuring nonsense in his ear.

“I—“ Stiles didn’t have the words. He swallowed. “Thanks. That was … so amazing.”

Derek kissed him in response.

“You’re still—“ Stiles dropped a hand to Derek’s cock. “May I?”

The werewolf placed his own hand around Stiles’s, helped him grip more firmly. He leaned their foreheads together, and staring into Stiles’s eyes, fierce and hungry, he began to thrust, his foreskin slick where it lapped over the head of his cock. It didn’t take very long before Derek’s breath was hitching in his throat and he turned his head and pressed against the young man’s neck, and his thrusting was so forceful Stiles had to add another hand, had to lock his elbows and brace himself and Derek threw his head back and his breath went out of him his whole body shook and he was coming all over Stiles’s legs.

Stiles was the one who leaned forward this time, pressing their lips together.

“You taste like the forest,” he said.

“You taste like home," Derek said, and kissed him again.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus smut.

“Um. So,” Stiles said. He ran his fingers along Derek’s jaw. Gave him a quick kiss. “We still need to wash your bottom half.”

“Mmmm,” Derek said.

“Which means we need to stand up, and behave.”

Derek leaned in and nuzzled his neck.

“I’m serious,” Stiles said. “Also we don’t have much time before the hot water runs out so let’s hurry.”

He stood up and pulled Derek to his feet. One last kiss which lasted a minute or so too long. The feel of their half-hard dicks sliding past each other.

Focus!

Stiles tried to keep his mind on the important part–Derek needed to be clean–but he was _washing Derek’s ass,_ the buttocks so firm they almost had corners. He spread them and washed Derek’s hole, trying not to notice the man’s moan. Soaped up the werewolf’s groin, scrubbed his bush, gently washed his balls.

Derek was throbbing hard now, but Stiles just moved on past, washing each leg, lifting each foot and cleaning between the toes. When he was done, he looked up at Derek and grinned. Leaned in and gave the werewolf’s cock a playful lick–laughed at the expression on his face–then stood up and jumped out of the shower.

“All right, time to get you dry,” he said, holding out a towel.

Derek didn’t seem to know how to dry himself off, so Stiles ended up doing it for him: hair first, shoulders, arms, stomach, back, ass, crotch–and now Derek was thrusting into the towel and Stiles found he didn’t want to say no. He knelt and took Derek into his mouth, gripping the base of the cock firmly in two hands. He’d never done this before–see the part where he was a complete and total virgin until an hour ago–but Derek was panting, his face flushing, and it was so hot that Stiles had to touch himself, found his own cock painfully erect, and Derek’s rhythm was becoming erratic and Stiles knew he was close, drove his tongue against the underside of Derek’s cock and Derek was shouting and Stiles’s mouth was full of come, and his own orgasm washed through him, a blissful yet powerful wave of pleasure that left him clinging to Derek’s leg like he was afraid of being dragged out to sea.

They shuddered against each other for a moment, Derek’s hands around Stiles’s head, Stiles’s face against Derek’s thigh.

Stiles let out a shaky laugh. “So I guess that first time wasn’t a fluke, then, huh?”

Derek smiled down at him. “Not a fluke.”

“Okay. I could get used to this.” He rubbed his face against Derek’s bush– _now_ I’m _turning into a wolf,_ he thought. “Let’s find you some clothes, okay? And then breakfast, then I’ve got school.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear the next update will be story, not smut.
> 
> Well, there will be at least some story. Smut might still happen. You know how it is.


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles wasn’t sure when his dad would get home, so he told Derek to stay in his bedroom while he got breakfast ready.

In the kitchen, he thought very hard. He’d been pretty distracted (by Derek’s hotness, and the kissing, and the sex) but there were still some major questions that needed to be answered. What had happened at the clinic? Who was the man who’d been killed, and how did he die? How did Derek end up a mile away at Stiles’s house?

Derek was on the bed when Stiles came in, bearing plates of toast and eggs. None of the shirts in the house had fit the werewolf, so he was wearing a pair of sweatpants and one of the sheriff’s extra uniform jackets.

“I only have a few minutes,” Stiles said. “But you gotta tell me—what happened last night?”

Derek looked unhappy. “Hunters,” he said.

“ _Hunters?_ ” Stiles said. “It’s not hunting season. And why would hunters break into an animal clinic?”

“Werewolf hunters,” Derek said. “After me.”

“Oh. There are people who—wow. Werewolves! Really? But how did they know—“

Derek shrugged. “When I heard them come in I tried to escape, but there was . . . a barrier. I couldn’t leave through the window. So I hid.”

“One of them died. His throat had been torn out by claws.” Stiles grimaced. “Did you—“

“It was the alpha,” Derek said. “Another werewolf, a very powerful one. I didn’t know there was an alpha in Beacon Hills, not since my mother—“ He broke off. “But she’s dead. Anyway. It attacked them in the entryway. I heard it rip the front door off, heard them shooting at it. They followed the alpha outside. When I heard them chase after it I left through the front door.” He covered his face. “I had never seen a dead body before,” he said. “I was upset and confused, so I followed your scent and came . . . here.”

Stiles scooted closer and rubbed a hand on Derek’s back. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of it.”

He glanced at the clock. He was definitely going to be late. He crammed a last bite of toast in his mouth, swallowed. Coughed when it got caught halfway down.

“My dad could be back any time,” he said when he could breathe again. “I don’t think he’ll look in here, but if he does, you need to hide. In the closet, maybe, or under the bed.”

Derek nodded.

“If he finds you, don’t hurt him. Run if you can. If you can’t run, go with him quietly and I’ll think of some way to fix things.”

Another nod.

“I gotta head to school. You can read my books and use my computer, but _don’t leave this room_. Okay?”

“Okay,” Derek said.

Stiles kissed him. “I’ll be thinking about you all day,” he said.

* * *

When Stiles left, Derek explored his new living quarters. Picked up a few books, put them back down. Fiddled with a collection of figurines on the dresser. Opened the closet. Closed the closet. He thought about jumping out the window and taking off, but he’d promised Stiles to stay here. Besides, the hunters were out there, and the alpha, whose howl had shivered through Derek’s bones . . .

He yawned. Sleep was as good a way to pass the time as any, he thought. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

It had been years since Derek had slept in human form, years since his dreams had had words, or humans that stood upright and talked to each other, to him. In this dream, he was thirteen again, and Kate was handing him a box, a present.

“Make sure Peter doesn’t find it,” she said. “It’s a surprise!”

The wrapping paper was patterned with purple flowers, and the bow was a wolfsbane rope. His fingers blistered and smoked where they touched the package, but he didn’t drop it or throw it away.

“Okay,” he heard himself saying. “I’ll hide it somewhere safe.”

“Such a good boy,” she said, ruffling his hair.

She smiled as the present caught fire. The pain was horrible, and now he did try to drop the box, but the wolfsbane rope caught his wrists and it was too late: the fire licked over him even as he transformed, his human skin and his wolf fur replaced with a red, burning coat of agony.

He woke gasping and crying. He filled his lungs with Stiles’s scent—the scent of safety, family, pack—and told himself for the thousandth time that he couldn’t have known, that it wasn’t his fault. But as usual it felt like a lie.

* * *

"Dude, you will never believe what happened last night."

They were in second period, the first time Stiles had seen Scott all day.

Scott gave him a confused look. "I was there with you last night. Remember? Of course I believe it." He shook his head. “Even if I wish I didn’t.”

"But you weren't there when I got home and found _Derek_ on my bed. _Naked_."

Scott shrugged. “Okay. He’s been living as a wolf, so I get why he was naked, but why was he on your bed?"

“He said he followed my scent,” Stiles said.

Scott’s forehead wrinkled, and he gave Stiles a skeptical look.

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Stiles said. “But he said it was a group of werewolf hunters who broke into the clinic. And then _they_ were attacked by another werewolf, a really big, gnarly one called an alpha.”

“But Derek’s all right?"

"I think so," Stiles said.

"You _think_ so?"

“He seemed okay. I was going to ask him if he got hurt but, er. We got distracted."

"What? You—no. No way." Scott's mouth was hanging open.

"Yep." Stiles was grinning. "You know how long I've waited to get you back for your chronic oversharing about Allison? Yeah. I'm going to tell you about the shower Derek and I took together this morning. In intimate detail."

" _Stiles I will murder you I am not even joking._ "

The bell rang.

"Okay, that's enough, quiet down everyone," the teacher said. "Turn to page 394 in your texts."

* * *

At lunch, Allison sat with them, which meant that Lydia, Jackson and Danny sat with them, too. Stiles tried not to spaz out too much—Lydia and Danny had been his go-to jerk-off fantasies for years. Fortunately they’d both gotten fairly good at ignoring his existence.

“So,” Lydia said. “Are we hanging out tonight?”

Everyone looked at her.

“You guys are back together,” she said, looking at Scott and Allison. “So we should do something.”

“That’d be cool,” Stiles said. “I’m always up for hanging out.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and ignored him. “Of course I mean the four of us.” She smiled. “We could go bowling again.”

“I’d rather slit my own wrists,” Jackson growled.

“Then think of something else,” Lydia snapped. “Because I’d rather slit _my_ wrists than sit through another Beacon Hills lacrosse highlight reel.”

“I . . . Lydia, we can’t,” Allison said.

Lydia’s head swiveled. “Why not?”

“My aunt Kate is in town, and . . . Scott and I are having dinner with the family tonight.”

“Wait, we are?” Scott said.

“Kate wants to meet you,” Allison said. “I know it’s awkward with—with my parents. But I promise you’ll like her. She’s lots of fun.”

Lydia sniffed. “Fine. Then we’re doing something this weekend. Allison, you get to pick. Make sure it’s fun.”

* * *

The sheriff came home around 1 pm. Derek heard him puttering around in the kitchen and eating something (a sandwich?). When heavy steps made their way up the stairs, he hid in the closet and tried not to breathe, but Stiles’s bedroom door stayed closed. A few minutes later he could hear snoring coming from the room down the hall.

He wondered how long the sheriff had been awake that day. And what kind of evidence he’d found at the animal clinic.

Derek curled back up on the bed and tried to stay awake.

* * *

“So you’re coming over after school, right?” Stiles said.

“Actually, Allison and I were going to study.” Scott looked sheepish.

“No you were not going to study. And besides, you can ‘study’ later! I need you to come help me with Derek.”

“What can I do about Derek? I already told you he’s not staying at my place.”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I’ve changed my mind about that. I think I like having him live in my room. It’ll be very convenient for . . . ‘studying.’”

Scott pretended to gag.

“Yeah, whatever, shut up. No, I think he might be in danger, and I was hoping . . .” He shrugged. “I was hoping you’d want to help keep him from being murdered by hunters.”

“Of course I want to help,” Scott said. “Is it okay if I come over, though? Aren’t you grounded?”

“Hmmm. You’re right. Well, we’ll just have to be sneaky. Bring homework so it’ll look like we’re studying.”

“I’ve told you before, I am not having sex with you, Stiles.”

“I didn’t—“

“Or with Derek.” Scott was grinning.

“Asshole. Stop making fun of me and my _natural curiosity._ ”

Scott sighed. “All right, I’ll drop by after school. Can I get a ride?”

“Of course, dude. See you in a bit.”

* * *

His dad’s cruiser was outside—finally!—but the house was dark and quiet.

“Probably asleep,” Stiles murmured. “Wonder when he got back? Poor Dad.”

They crept upstairs. Derek was sitting in Stiles’s desk chair when they opened the bedroom door. He was reading Stiles’s _Sandman_ collection, and even though he closed it right away it looked like he was more than three quarters of the way through.

“Okay, I think Dad’s asleep—“

“He is,” Derek said.

“Good. So let’s not wake him up. But if he comes to investigate, Derek, you hide in the closet, and Scott, you and I will pretend to be studying.”

“Not sure your dad would take that too well,” Scott said.

“Shut up,” Stiles said. “The _real_ kind of studying.” He got out his chemistry book. “Get out yours, too, Scott. It’ll lend some verisimilitude to this farce.”

“Uh, I don’t have my textbook. I left it in my locker.”

“No wonder you’re failing!” Stiles punched him in the shoulder. “You need to get your shit together, dude.”

“Ow! I know, it’s just—having a girlfriend is kind of distracting.” He gave Stiles a meaningful look. “You’ll know what I’m talking about soon.”

Derek was looking confused.

“Come sit by me,” Stiles said. “I missed you all day.”

Derek got up and curled up on the bed with his head in Stiles’s lap.

“Did you miss me?”

A nod. “I had nightmares while you were gone.”

“What about?”

After a moment, Derek whispered, “Hunters.”

“Have you run into hunters before?”

“Just one.”

Stiles had an awful premonition. “Was he one of the hunters who showed up last night?”

“She. And yes.”

“A woman? What’s her name? Who is she?”

Derek looked like he might cry.

“Okay, whoa, I’m sorry, we’ll talk about something else. It’s okay, Derek.” He was running his hands over the werewolf’s shoulders and neck, trying to help him relax.

“No, you should know. She’s from a famous, ancient family of hunters. And she’s . . . evil.” Derek cleared his throat. “Her name’s Kate Argent."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't look at this anymore, so I'm posting it. That's healthy writing technique, right?

“Wait.” Scott’s voice sounded strangled. “Kate _Argent?_ As in, ‘Aunt Kate’? Allison’s _aunt_ hunts werewolves?”

“All the Argents hunt werewolves,” Derek said. “They have for centuries.”

“Allison doesn’t hunt werewolves,” Scott said.

Derek shrugged.

“Wait,” Stiles said. “Didn’t you say Allison was good at archery? Like, super-good?”

“Yeah," said Scott. "So?”

“Doesn’t that sound like the kind of hobby the daughter of an _ancient werewolf-hunting family_ would pick up?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Lots of people do archery, Stiles.”

“Yeah, people like Hawkeye. Who doesn’t count, by the way, because he’s imaginary.”

“No, like a lot of normal people,” Scott said. “It’s an Olympic sport.”

“I think maybe your definition and my definition of ‘normal’ diverged at some point, but whatever.” Stiles flapped his hands. “My point is, you don’t know that Allison doesn’t hunt werewolves, and even if she doesn’t, that doesn’t mean her family doesn’t. And Derek says her aunt is for sure a werewolf hunter.” He glanced at Derek. “Also he says she’s evil.”

“Yeah.” Scott did not sound impressed. “ _Derek_ says.”

Derek let out a low growl and Scott flinched.

“Shhh, I know,” Stiles said, stroking Derek’s head. “I know. He’s a dumbass, but please don’t tear his throat out.”

The growl lowered, but didn’t stop.

“I mean, the blood. All over my bed! Not fun.” He bent over and gave Derek a kiss on the cheek.

Scott stood up. “Uh, as awesome as this has been, I gotta head over to Allison’s.”

“Gonna get a little ‘studying’ in before dinner?” Stiles grinned.

“And you aren’t?”

“Touché,” murmured Stiles, running a hand over Derek’s chest.

Scott left very quickly after that.

* * *

Things were just getting good when someone knocked on the bedroom door. Fortunately their clothes were still on.

“Stiles?”

Derek was instantly off the bed.

“Just a second, Dad,” Stiles said. He pushed Derek into the closet. “Stay there,” he mouthed. He gave Derek a quick kiss, closed the closet and opened the door. “What’s up?” he said, slouching a little in hopes of making his boner less obvious.

Apparently it didn’t work.

“Uh.” The sheriff put a hand over his eyes. “I was going to ask if we could have a talk, but it looks like I interrupted something.”

“Just some, er, me time,” Stiles said, trying to pull his shirt down over his groin. “Trying to de-stress.”

“Right. How about I come back in, ah. Twenty minutes?”

“Sounds great. Great idea, Dad. See you in twenty.”

“Wait.”

Stiles froze with the door half-shut.

“Is that a hickey?”

“Uh.” Oops. “No, a bruise. I got … hit by a lacrosse ball. In the neck.”

“Hmmm. Sounds painful. All right, twenty minutes, son.”

His dad walked away, shaking his head.

Stiles closed the door and opened the closet. Derek’s hands were over his mouth and his eyes were wide.

“Hey,” Stiles said.

He tugged on Derek’s wrists and the werewolf dropped his hands and exhaled explosively.

“You okay?” he asked.

Derek shrugged, then shook his head. Stiles gave him a hug.

“I know you’re worried and anxious. Hang in there. I won’t abandon you and I won’t let you get hurt.” He looked Derek in the eye. “You know I won’t let anything bad happen, right?”

Derek nodded and gave him a half-smile.

“Okay. Uh. My dad doesn’t usually come in here, but I think he expects to have this heart-to-heart in my bedroom. So we need to hide you.”

The panicky look was back.

“Not for long, and not far away. I was thinking—you came in through the window, right?”

“Yes.” Derek swallowed. “I climbed up.”

“Do you think you could climb out the window and wait on the roof?”

The werewolf looked uncertain. “Yes.”

“It won’t be for very long. Here, wanna cuddle until my dad gets back?”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Derek was out the window and his dad was knocking on the door again.

“Hey, Dad,” Stiles said. “Come on in.”

His dad took the desk chair. Stiles sat on the bed.

The sheriff looked serious. “Son, is there anything you want to tell me about?”

“Um. Like what?”

“You showed up at a _crime scene_ last night, Stiles. No, wait, not last night—at 5:15 this morning.”

“I showed up at the _animal clinic,_ ” Stiles countered. “It’s not my fault it turned out to be a crime scene. No one informed me there was crime scheduled to happen there this morning. I was very taken aback. And annoyed. At—at the crime.”

The sheriff grimaced and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “All right. So you want to tell me why you were at the animal clinic, then?”

“I told you. I was worried about Derek.”

“So you were, what, going to break into the clinic and … give him some snuggles? Refill his water bowl? Maybe get yourself mauled by a god. Damn. Wild animal?”

“Uh. First of all, Derek wouldn’t maul me. Scott, maybe.” Stiles remembered the way Derek had growled at Scott earlier. “Okay, Scott definitely. But I would’ve been there, so there wouldn’t have been any mauling at all.”

“But what about—”

“And _SECOND_ of all,” Stiles said, “we weren’t going to ‘break into’ the clinic. Scott has a key.”

His dad did that skeptical thing with his eyebrows. “Did either of you get permission from Dr. Deaton to enter the clinic outside of business hours?”

“Uh … no, but we thought it would be okay if he knew it was about Derek. I knew Derek’d wake up and freak out and probably hurt himself. And I was right!”

A pained sigh. “Help me out here, Stiles. This is a wolf we’re talking about. A wolf you ran into for the first time _yesterday._ Is there—you’d tell me if there were something going on, right?”

“Of course.” Stiles smiled. “Of course I would, Dad.”

A strange expression appeared on the sheriff’s face. “Wait. That _was_ the first time, wasn’t it? You saw that wolf for the first time yesterday.”

“Yeah, yesterday evening.”

“And since the clinic, you haven’t seen it since?”

“Nope, no wolf sightings since.” Stiles spread his hands. “Not even a glimpse of a furry tail.”

“No one else in town seems to have seen a wolf either,” the sheriff said musingly. “Now, maybe it made it all the way back to the woods before dawn, or maybe it’s just been lucky so far. Or maybe—and this is what I’m worried about—maybe someone is hiding it.”

Stiles tried to look disbelieving. “Hiding . . . the wolf? You mean someone is hiding the wolf. Like a suspect on the lam?”

“I mean—” His dad sighed. “I mean you’ve been acting strange—stranger than usual, which is saying something—and it’s worrying me. And I wish you would just _tell_ me what’s going on so I can stop coming up with wild theories about what secrets you’re keeping from me.”

For a second, Stiles considered telling his dad everything. It would be a weight of his chest; his dad could be the capable sheriff and take care of everything.

Or his dad could have him committed. Stiles wished he were more certain about which choice the sheriff would make.

So all he said was, “ _Dad._ Stop making stuff up to worry about. It’s not good for your cardiovascular health.”

The sheriff opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by a long, drawn-out wolf howl coming from outside—followed by a clearly audible scrabbling on the roof.

A second later, something—or someone—thumped to the ground outside (perhaps because it—or he—had just leaped off the roof).

“Shit,” Stiles said.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh action is so hard to write. Why do I write stories where the characters do more than sit around and talk at each other and then have sex?

“Uh,” Stiles said, jumping to his feet. “Great talk, Dad—” and he was running downstairs.

“Stiles!” The sheriff did not sound happy.

Stiles pretended he hadn’t heard and slammed his way out the front door. A hundred yards away, at the end of the street, he saw a vaguely humanoid figure in sweatpants and his father’s sheriff jacket, galloping away on all fours.

“Derek!” he shouted.

The werewolf stumbled slightly, looking back over his shoulder.

Another howl split the air. Outside the howl seemed much … huger, wilder. A gigantic weight, pressing in, pressing down.

“Whoa,” Stiles said.

That noise hadn’t come from Derek. Maybe the first hadn’t, either.

Derek took off in the direction of the howl.

Stiles hopped in the Jeep and peeled out of the driveway. Wherever Derek was going, he was going too.

* * *

Stiles thought he’d lost Derek after a couple of turns, but then he caught sight of him again on a residential street. The werewolf was a little closer, still galloping along somehow on hands and feet, but slowing down now. Looking confused.

Stiles had barely pulled up next to him when Derek suddenly shrugged himself right out of his clothes and turned back into the familiar dark gray wolf.

“Derek?” Stiles got out of the Jeep and walked closer, hands held out entreatingly. “Derek, it’s me, buddy. What’s going on?”

The wolf ignored him, lowering its head to sniff the sidewalk, the grass, the air.

“C’mon, buddy. I need you to tell me what’s up, which means you have to change back so you can _use your words._ ”

The wolf seemed to pick up the scent it was looking for, because it set off again, this time at an easy trot.

“Hey, wait for me!” Stiles said. He scooped up the abandoned jacket and sweatpants, hopped back in the Jeep and followed.

The houses in this neighborhood were tall and spacious and set back from the curb, with wide driveways and landscaping. Not quite mansions, but pretty close.

The wolf stopped on the sidewalk in front of one of the houses and scented the air.

“Okay, so why here?” Stiles said.

The wolf ignored him. It seemed reluctant to set foot on the actual property, running anxiously back and forth as close to the edge of the sidewalk as it could without stepping on the lawn.

Stiles got out of the Jeep and folded his arms. “You know, you really need to start talking, because I’m getting annoyed and confused, and when I’m annoyed and confused I just get even louder and more spastic, and I start tripping over things and laughing too much and talking nonstop and I’m _sure_ you want to avoid that.” Stiles noticed something beside the front door of the house. “Wait. Is that Scott’s bike?”

It was. Which meant this was the Argent’s house. And since it was now almost seven o’clock, the Argents were probably inside right now, eating dinner and planning their next werewolf kill.

Okay, maybe they wouldn’t do that in front of Scott.

But still. Werewolf hunters. And Stiles was standing in plain sight right in front of their house. Next to a werewolf.

“Uh, Derek. I really think we should get going.”

The wolf was still ignoring him. Its attention now seemed riveted on the space next to the Argents’ house, where the evening shadows were especially thick. Stiles saw something shift there, dark and bulky, and then a pair of glowing red eyes was glaring back at him.

“Oh shit. Oh shitting fucking shit.”

So that’s what an alpha looked like. Dark fur, massive shoulders, long, vicious claws. And fiery demon eyes.

The wolf next to him was growling, but its tail was between its legs, and it looked fucking _terrified._ Obviously Derek was no match for the alpha.

“C’mon, boy,” Stiles breathed.

He took a step back, and the wolf retreated a step, too. The alpha watched them from the shadows, unblinking, unmoving. Another step, and Stiles’s back hit the door of the Jeep. He turned and yanked it open, glancing back to make sure the alpha was staying put.

The red eyes blinked, and then they were turning away to peer in through one of the Argents’ side windows. Stiles watched, mouth open, as the alpha lifted one of its deadly-looking hands, inserted a claw under the sash and dragged the window open. A second later it had disappeared inside the house.

“Get in,” he told the wolf, motioning to the interior of the Jeep.

It leaped in without protest and cowered down on the seat.

“Stay,” Stiles said, closing the door. He looked back at the house. Sighed. “I am so going to get mauled to death.”

He fumbled for his phone and hammered out a quick text to Scott.

_Alpha werewolf just climbed into Argents house_

The he started moving as stealthily as possible across the driveway to the side of the house and the open window. He almost had a heart attack when his phone pinged. It was a text from Scott.

_wtf u talking about_

Stiles snarled and set the phone to silent mode before replying.

_I’m outside I just saw it climb in a window_

He crept closer, craning his neck to try to see through the window. Another text alert, this time on vibrate, made him nearly jump out of his skin. Obviously stealth and text messages were not meant to go together.

_y r u outside???_ was Scott’s reply.

_Not the point dumbass. your in danger!!_

A long moment passed. Stiles grimaced and edged forward until he was directly under the window. He wondered if he’d know when the alpha started its rampage by the sound of screams and breaking glass. And gunfire, if the Argents were prepared.

Finally two texts arrived from Scott back to back.

_r u trying to make this dinner evn more akwrd bc i dont need ur help 4 that_

and then

_allisons dad is trying 2 trick me in2 drinkng tequila_

“Fuck.”

Stiles was mulling over the idea of just ringing the Argents’ doorbell when an enormous weight fell out of the sky on top of him. An enormous weight with fur and claws. He squealed and crumpled.

Somewhere, Derek-the-wolf was going crazy with yips and howls.

So this is how I die, Stiles thought distractedly, and then the weight and the claws disappeared, and he was lifting his head blearily and watching the alpha limp away and struggle over the Argents’ back fence.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles was still rubbing his head when a hand closed around his arm and he was hauled to his feet.

“Got him.” A steely-eyed blond woman was pinning him to wall of the house. “I told you I heard something,” she said over her shoulder as Allison’s mother and father came around the corner of the house. She turned back to Stiles and leaned in. “This is how it’s going to work. You are going to give back whatever you stole from my room and then _maybe_ I won’t break any of your bones.”

It occurred to Stiles that he would probably think she was pretty if he wasn’t too busy finding her completely fucking terrifying.

“Oh my god, _Stiles?_ ” Allison was peering around her father, and Scott was gaping at Stiles over her shoulder.

“You know this young man, Allison?” Mr. Argent had a pistol in his hand, but at least it wasn’t pointed in Stiles’s direction.

“Hey Allison,” Stiles said weakly. “Hey, Scott.”

“Dude,” Scott said. “I told you I didn’t need any help.”

Everyone looked at Scott, who turned a frightening greenish-purple.

“Uh, I mean . . .”

“Scott was nervous about this dinner, so I tagged along for moral support.” Stiles waved a hand at he Jeep, still parked by the curb. He was both very glad and very nervous to notice that it appeared to be empty. “And while I was sitting out there, texting him encouragement like the awesome best friend I am, I saw some . . . guy. I dunno. It was dark. Big? Hairy? Anyway, he climbed in that window.”

Mrs. Argent’s lip curled. “And you decided to trespass on our property instead of calling us, or the police . . . why?”

“Uh, well. Like I said, it was dark, and I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. Didn’t want to raise a false alarm, right? So I walked over to investigate, but just as I got to the window he jumped out, right on my head.”

The blond woman was still holding onto his arm with a grip of steel, but at least she hadn’t threatened him with bodily harm in almost a minute. Her eyes had narrowed, and she was tapping her lips with her other hand. She turned to Mr. Argent.

“Chris. Do those look like claw marks to you?” She pointed at Stiles’s face.

Mr. Argent nodded. “Could be.”

“You think—“

“A mountain lion. Almost definitely,” Mr. Argent said.

Stiles felt his jaw drop.

“Like you said, it was dark,” Mr. Argent said.

“Eyes can play tricks on you at this time of night,” the blond woman said.

“You should probably get those scratches looked at,” Mrs. Argent said. “Are your tetanus shots current?”

“Kate,” Mr. Argent said. “Why don’t you bring him inside? I’ll grab the first aid kit.”

“Ah, er, thanks,” Stiles said, squirming. “But I really should get going. Sorry for interrupting your family meal with my bleeding.”

The blond woman—who was apparently Aunt Kate—didn’t let go. “Come on, Stiles,” she said. Her voice was coaxing. “You got injured on our property. It’s the least we can do. Some peroxide, a couple of bandaids—and we’d really appreciate anything else you could tell us about this . . . mountain lion you saw.”

Scott cleared his throat. “Stiles, what about your dad?”

“Huh?” Stiles had no idea what this was about.

“You said your dad was expecting you home at 7:30, right? Well, it’s almost 8 now. Shouldn’t you be heading home?”

“Oh. Yes. That is true.” Stiles lied, flashing a sheepish grin at the Argents. “I’m grounded,” he explained. “Long story.”

Kate let go of his arm. “Well, it was nice meeting you. Stiles.” She stepped back and folded her arms. “I can tell you’re a fun guy. Maybe I’ll see you around?” She smiled, but there was something ominous and threatening about her friendliness.

Mr. Argent held out his hand. “Good to meet you,” he said. “Drive safe.”

Stiles shook his hand energetically. “Oh, yes. You guys are . . . the best. Kate. Mrs. Argent. Allison.” He nodded to everyone. “See ya later, Scott.”

Derek was human again, and had somehow put the sweatpants back on in the tight confines of the Jeep. He was sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead when Stiles got in. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice strained, his mouth set.

* * *

Derek hadn’t seen Kate Argent in six years, and he was barely able to keep from flinging himself from the Jeep and ripping out her throat when she slammed Stiles against the wall and threatened to break his bones. But that would just get him _and_ Stiles dead. He tried to breathe, letting his heart calm, his fangs and claws recede, but he became more and more sure that she would glance over and see him in the Jeep. He pressed himself as far into the seat as possible, trying to be invisible.

“Let’s go,” he said when Stiles got in. He hated how forced and thin the words sounded. How young and useless and callow she still made him feel.

When they were a couple blocks away, Stiles looked at him.

“So what was that?”

“What?” Derek said.

“You led me all the way across town, following, I don’t know, some howling? A smell? It wasn’t clear, since you weren’t really talking. And we ended up in front of the freaking _Argents’_ house, where I watched the _Alpha_ break in and then had it _jump on top of me_. After which I was interrogated by werewolf hunters!”

“Oh. That.” Derek cleared his throat. “The Alpha called me, and I—I had to go.”

“You had to go.”

“It was—“ he shook his head. “It sounded like it was suffering. In pain. It called for me to help.”

“Why was it in pain?”

Derek shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know why it called me, or why the call was too strong for me to resist.” He shivered, felt panic rise in his throat. “Or why it led me there, of all places.”

“You okay, buddy?” Stiles put a hand on his knee.

He could feel his chest squeezing in. He shoved his fists against his mouth, a whine catching in his throat, his breath coming in tortured gasps. The Jeep come to a halt.

“Derek.” Stiles’s voice was calm and firm. “Derek, I need you to breathe for me. Focus on your breathing. Can you slow it down just a bit?”

He shook his head.

“I’m going to count, and I want you to try to breathe in time with my counting. You’ll breathe in for two counts, hold for two counts, breathe out for two counts, and hold for two counts. Ready? One. Two. Hold. Four. Breathe out. Six. Hold. Eight. That’s better. Keep trying. Breathe out. Six. Seven. Eight.”

His breathing had calmed, become less panicky, and now Derek was straight up sobbing. He felt Stiles lean over and pull him into a hug. They sat there like that for a few minutes, until Derek’s sobs trailed off into hiccups and he was left feeling incredibly foolish.

“I’m such an idiot,” he said, wiping at his tears. “Just . . . seeing Kate, you know? She—“ _[gave me a present]_ “—destroyed everything I had.”

“Derek, what did she do?”

He looked up. “She trapped my family in our house . . . and then set the house on fire. Because we were werewolves.” He felt his lip tremble. “They all died except for me.”

“Jesus Christ.” Stiles looked horrified and homicidal. “I’m going to _kill_ her. I’ll kill her!”

Someone rapped on the window, and a flashlight beam illuminated the inside of the Jeep. Stiles’s father was standing outside, looking grim.

* * *

Stiles rolled down the window, smile already in place. “Uh, hi Dad. How’s things?”

“You want to tell me what you’re doing parked in a residential neighborhood and making out? With a _man?_ ”

“Well, Dad, there are some things I probably should have told you about me. Maybe in that heart-to-heart we were having earlier?”

His dad rolled his eyes. “Son, I don’t care if you’re into guys or girls. What I _care_ about is that the person my underage son is making out with appears to be an _adult_.”

“Okay. First, we we weren’t making out. I was . . . hugging him. Because he was sad.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Second, his name is Miguel. Miguel, my dad. Dad, Miguel.”

But now the sheriff was peering past Stiles into the passenger side with a disbelieving expression on his face, like he hadn’t really gotten a good look at ‘Miguel’ until that moment.

“Derek?” he said.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! This update seemed a little harder for me to write than the others. Hope you like.

Stiles knew his mouth was hanging open. "Uh—"

He looked at Derek to see if he'd changed back into a wolf, but no, still human—and looking intensely uncomfortable, although not exactly surprised.

"It is you, Derek, isn't it?" The sheriff shook his head, his face darkening. "They held a _funeral_ for you. You know that? A funeral. We thought—" He cleared his throat. "Everyone thought you were dead, Derek."

"Sorry," Derek gritted out. His hands were clenched in his lap.

Stiles wasn't sure if Derek was angry or about to burst into tears. "Derek?" he said. "What's going on?"

When Derek didn't say anything, the sheriff snorted.

"What's going on is your boyfriend here hasn't been very honest with you. For starters, his name isn't 'Miguel,' it's Derek. Derek Hale. And then there's the fact that—"

"Derek _Hale?_ " Stiles thought his brain was going to explode. "Of the Hale family? Of the Hale house fire?" For some reason it had never occurred to him that his new friend—boyfriend?—Derek might be from Beacon Hills, might even be notorious. Except— "I thought no one survived the Hale fire," Stiles said.

"Two people did," his dad said.

Derek's head whipped up. "Two?"

"Besides you, there was your uncle Peter. He's in a long-term care facility now. Badly burned, and in a persistent vegetative state. But alive." The sheriff looked sad. "You're family, so you'll be able to visit him."

"I—" Derek's jaw clenched. "No. That—that wouldn't be appropriate."

"Not appropriate?" The sheriff looked incensed. "Whereas disappearing for six years and letting everyone think you were dead _was_ appropriate?"

Derek shrugged. "I didn't leave on purpose, but . . . it was for the best, in the end."

Stiles's dad threw up his hands. "Fine. I'm not the one you should be having this conversation with, anyway. Stiles, follow me back to the station. Wait, no, you take him back to our house, the station's too impersonal. I'll stop by the station and meet you back home in half an hour." The sheriff stabbed a finger in Derek's direction. "I'm calling your sister and you are going to explain all of this to her."

Stiles heard Derek's breath seize in his throat.

"Laura?" the werewolf choked out. "Laura's alive?"

 

* * *

 

Derek didn't say anything on the drive back home. Stiles glanced over occasionally, but each time the werewolf's face was white and drawn, jaw clenched, and he decided not to break the silence.

At the front door, Derek grabbed Stiles and pulled him into a fierce hug, face buried in the young man's neck. Stiles squeezed him back.

"Hey, man," Stiles said. "It's okay. You deserve to have feelings, and to feel them as strong as you need, and—and you go ahead. You feel those feelings, and I'll be here. As long as you need me."

Was that a choked sob? No. Not a sob—-Derek was _laughing_ into his shoulder.

"Thanks. Thanks, dude." Stiles pushed him away. "I'm glad you appreciate my wisdom."

Derek gave him a watery grin. "You're welcome," he said. "And . . . thanks."

"Let's get inside, okay?"

 

* * *

 

Derek's thoughts were everywhere. Laura alive—how?—his older sister who had teased and tormented him growing up. The smell of Stiles, sitting near him on the couch, close enough to touch. The sheriff, shining the flashlight in his face and saying, "Derek? Everyone thought you were dead." The alpha's call shivering through him, plucking at his nerves and vibrating his bones. His sister's call. The twisted, nightmare form she took, her glowing red eyes, hulking shoulders. —No. It wasn't possible. Laura had always had exquisite control, and he couldn't imagine anything changing that. The sandwich Stiles had made him, turkey on multigrain, held untouched in his hands.

"Hey."

He felt Stiles lay a hand on his shoulder, felt himself leaning into the touch. Stiles took the sandwich away, put an arm around his back and urged him closer.

"Come here. We'll just sit and—and wait together. Okay?"

Derek nodded and scooted up next to Stiles, laid his head on his shoulder. He heard a car approach the house and he tried not to stiffen, tried not to relax as it passed on by. Stiles's hand was combing through his hair.

"Do you want to talk?" Stiles said.

Derek shook his head.

"Okay, that's valid. Totally valid. But I hope you don't mind me talking because I'm a _tiny_ bit keyed up right now and I have trouble staying quiet even at the best of times, and while this right here is definitely one of the better situations I've been in in some ways—the ways where I get to cuddle with you on the couch, for instance—in other ways it's kind of stressful, you know? Even if it's not my stress." Stiles fell silent for a second. "Do you know what you're going to tell her?"

"No," Derek croaked, and hid his face in Stiles's shoulder.

"Are you happy you'll get to see her?"

Yes. No. Derek shrugged.

"She left town after the fire," Stiles said. "I don't know where she went, whether she settled down anywhere. But a couple weeks ago she showed back up in town, wearing a badass leather jacket and driving a black Camaro."

Derek lifted his head and stared at Stiles.

"I know, right? Way hot. Well, she's your sister, you probably don't think about her like that. And no worries, I'm not going to make a move or anything—"

Derek felt himself growling. He wrapped his arms around Stiles and nipped his neck. " _Mine_ ," he said.

"Yeah?" Stiles said.

"Yeah."

"Okay." It sounded like Stiles was grinning. "I can handle that, as long as you're mine, too."

Derek didn't answer, just snuggled closer.

Stiles _hmph_ ed. "I'll take that as a yes for now, but we are actually talking about this at some point," he said.

They sat in silence for a minute.

"You thought—" Stiles cleared his throat. "You thought she died in the fire, didn't you." He waited for moment, but Derek didn't say anything. "She wasn't home that night," he went on. "She was out with a friend, is what she said. They never mentioned who the friend was in the police report. I mean, if I had read the police report, which of course I didn't, due to all the legal—and moral—reasons why that would be . . . wrong."

Derek discovered that he was crying again, imagining Laura—eighteen-year-old Laura, the Laura he remembered—sneaking out to meet someone. Coming back to find the house in flames, her whole family—

"She got me out," he said, choking down a sob.

"What?"

"Laura. I don't remember much about the fire, but I remember her shaking me, shouting at me to wake up. She dragged me out of my bed and—and threw me out the window." He grunted a laugh. "Right through the glass. I—I must have passed out." He glanced at Stiles. "When I woke up again, the house was a burned-out wreck. I figured they were all dead. That she'd saved me, but hadn't been able to get out herself."

Stiles looked confused. "But—she did get out. Or actually, I don't remember hearing that she ever went in. The fire was too hot, it was too dangerous." He paused. "Although if she did go in, she might be the reason your uncle survived as well. Dad made it sound like he was in awful shape after the fire."

Derek shrugged tiredly. "Maybe I dreamed it," he said. "The past six years feel like one long nightmare anyway. I wish I would just wake. _Up._ "

He raised his head and looked towards the front door. Two cars had just approached the house; one parked in the driveway and the other in the street.

"They're here," he said, knowing his voice sounded dull and suffocated.

"It'll be fine," Stiles said. "You'll be fine. You want to stay here on the couch?"

Derek nodded and tried to fold his limbs in even closer, pressing his face into Stiles's side, making himself as small as possible. The front door opened. He felt Stiles's head turn.

"Hey, Dad," Stiles said.

"Son," he heard the sheriff say. "Derek."

He could smell Laura, and hear her breathing. He knew she was looking at him.

"Derek." Her voice was the same and not the same.

She has to already know, he thought. If she didn't guess the truth right after the fire, she must have figured it out when she heard he was still alive. He still couldn't look at her.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know," she said. "You don't need to be."

He couldn't tell her how wrong she was in front of the Sheriff. Or maybe ever—he wasn't sure he would be able to form the words.

She knelt in front of him. No way to avoid looking at her now: Laura, six years older, wearing a black leather jacket and an air of grim resourcefulness. But she was almost smiling.

"I hoped you were alive," she said. "I told myself it wasn't healthy, that you must have—that there were too many ways for you to have died, during the fire or . . . after. But I still hoped." She pressed her hands to the sides if his face. "And here you are. I can barely make myself believe it."

"Stiles," the sheriff said. "Let's leave them alone for a bit, okay?"

"Is that okay?" Stiles asked Derek.

"Yeah. Thanks."

They went out into the kitchen. As soon as they couldn't see, the almost-smile disappeared from Laura's face, leaving grimness and determination behind.

"You said you were sorry," Laura said. "When I came in. I need you to tell me exactly what you're sorry for."

"Everything," he said, and he was _crying_ again, hating himself and all of this. Being a wolf had been simple: Sleep when you were tired. Run if the hunters came. Eat when you could, defend yourself if you had to—but in any case, survive. There wasn't a whole lot of space for emotions and regrets.

"Derek." Laura's voice was tinged with power, an irresistible tone of command. The voice of an alpha.

His tears stopped and he looked up.

"Derek, why did you disappear?"

He swallowed. "After the fire, I thought you were all—I thought I was the only one left. And the hunters came for me, so I ran."

"Hunters?" Laura became very focused. "What hunters?"

"Kate Argent," he said. "And some of her cronies. I don't know them."

"Kate," she said, closing her eyes, her mouth twisting as if the name had burned it. She looked at me again. "I got home late that night. The first floor was already an inferno. I screamed for Mom and Dad, but no one answered, so I climbed a tree and smashed through the window in the upper landing. There was smoke everywhere. I went to your room first because it was closest. I got you up—you were sluggish, like you had been drugged. My head was swimming. I threw you through the window and began looking for the others, but the fire was spreading so fast, and the smoke—I think it was wolfsbane. I got Uncle Peter out before the ceiling collapsed." Her face was exhausted, as if she was reliving the night of the fire. "It fell in right on top of me, actually, and I thought I was dead, but the alpha power flooded me, like nothing I can describe, and I just shouldered it all off. These heavy beams, and the flames. Got outside and watched my blackened flesh heal." She was rubbing her shoulder like she was remembering the pain. "I searched the garden under your window, but you weren't there. I smelled your blood, and . . . humans. But then the fire department came, and it was all I could do not to let the alpha shift overcome me. And later, when I looked, your trail was cold, and I assumed . . . I'm sorry."

Then she was hugging him, and Derek was pretty sure he wasn't the only one crying this time.

 


	11. Chapter 11

“I saw you today,” Derek said.

“Today?” Laura looked confused. “When?”

“At the Argents’ house. You howled for me—I didn’t understand why the call was so insistent, irresistible, but of course it was you. You’re my alpha.”

She shook her head. “I never howled,” she said definitely. “I’ve been trying to lie low, werewolf-wise. And I certainly haven’t been paying the Argents any visits.”

“Then who—”

“I don’t know,” she said. Then— “Peter. Was it Peter?”

“But Peter’s not an alpha. And the sheriff said he’s a vegetable.”

“True …” She looked troubled. “There’s something here I don’t understand, and I don’t like it. Starting with the reason you were at the Argents’. What happened?”

“The alpha called, and I followed it there. And Stiles followed me. It broke into their house and then ran away. It seemed injured.”

Her gaze sharpened. “Injured how?”

“I don’t know. I was lying low in the Jeep. But it was clumsy and limping. It barely made it over the Argents’ back fence.”

“I wonder if whoever it is had a run-in with the Argents earlier.”

“It did. At the animal clinic.”

“What? The _animal_ clinic?”

Derek blushed. “Yeah. You didn’t know? They took me there when they found me in the woods. I was in full shift and—well, I’d been living as wolf for a while. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“And what happened at the clinic?”

“Kate. She must’ve heard that a wolf had been found—and of course she’d know there aren’t any wild wolves in California. So she came to the clinic to finish what she started.”

“So you know about that.” Laura looked like she’d been punched in the gut. “That Kate was behind the fire.”

He covered his face with his hands. “Not just Kate,” he said. “I—” He choked. “I he—helped her. I swear I didn’t know—I would never—”

“Let me guess,” Laura said. “She tricked you somehow. Told you a plausible lie. Made you feel good about yourself, that you were awesome and special and—” Laura cleared her throat. “Am I right?”

He nodded dumbly. He felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Derek. She’s evil. A homicidal psychopath. You were thirteen, it’s not your fault.”

“I should’ve known,” he said. “At the very least I should have told someone about her and Peter.”

“Wait.” Laura had a strange look on her face. “Kate and … _Peter?_ ”

“They were sneaking out to meet each other. Kate made me promise not to tell—or even to let Peter know I knew.”

Laura grimaced. “That magnificent bitch. God I hate her, but I have to admit she’s good.” She shook her head. “Anyway, the clinic?”

“The alpha attacked them,” he said. “I heard it roaring, heard them unloading their guns into it. I was in a cage in the back room. I broke out and waited until it was quiet and then I—left.” He swallowed. “It killed one of them. Not Kate.”

“Wolfsbane bullets,” Laura said. “Kate’s specialty. The alpha must’ve broken into their house to get a sample to heal itself with.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right. That makes sense.” He felt stupid. It had been six years since he’d had to think about things, to put things together, and apparently his brain was rusty.

She slugged him lightly in the shoulder. “Derek. Buck up. We’re together again. We’re pack! It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” he said. But it was hard to believe it.

 

* * *

 

Letting go of Derek made his heart ache, but the sheriff was giving him his Serious Look, so Stiles reluctantly followed him into the kitchen.

“So,” his dad said. “Dinner?”

“Uh, what?” That was the last thing Stiles was expecting the sheriff to say.

“We have guests, son. And at least one of them is probably hungry. Unless you took Derek out to eat as part of your ‘date’?”

“Ah. No. No, we did not do dinner.”

“I’m thinking spaghetti,” his dad said. “You wanna start the pasta?”

The spaghetti was on to boil and the sauce was heating up when the sheriff finally spoke up again.

“I heard an interesting rumor today,” he said.

“Um. Yeah?”

“Yeah. Wolf sightings, up in Beacon Heights.”

“Oh.” Stiles swallowed.

“Know what else those same people said?”

“No,” Stiles said, trying to look interested instead of culpable.

“That my _son_ —who, by the way, is supposed to be _grounded_ —was seen near-simultaneously with the wolf. In a rich neighborhood on the other side of town.”

“Uh.”

“And don’t think I didn’t hear that howl right before you ran off this afternoon,” the sheriff added. “Or the clumping on the roof. What I don’t understand is, how’d you get the wolf up there? And I could have sworn I heard it jump down—“

“It was Scott,” Stiles said. “On the roof.”

“Scott. So when I walked in on you earlier, it was Scott you were—“

Oh. Oops. “No, no no no no. Um. No. Scott and I are just—just friends.”

“Stiles. Tell me the truth.”

He sighed. “Fine. It was Derek. Derek was in my room, and then Derek was on the roof.”

“Human Derek? Derek Hale?”

Stiles nodded.

“I gotta say, it’s really confusing the way you named that wolf ‘Derek,’ too,” his dad said. “And maybe a little disturbing, given the kinds of stuff you’re apparently getting up to with the human Derek.”

“Tell me about it,” Stiles muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Stiles.” The sheriff’s stare was very direct. “Are the two of you having sex?”

Stiles considered. “If I say yes, are you going to arrest Derek?”

His dad sighed. “Probably not.”

“Then we’re probably not having sex.”

“Who’s having sex?” Laura said from the doorway.

Stiles felt himself turn red. Beside Laura, Derek’s face was carefully blank. Laura glanced between the two of them and let out a chortle.

“Oh my god, you and Stiles!” she said. “Derek has a _boyfriend_!”

 

* * *

 

After dinner—which, to Derek’s complete lack of surprise, turned out to be hideously awkward, although the pasta was delicious—Laura announced that she was taking off for the night.

“Thanks for dinner, Sheriff,” she said. “Have a good night.” She smirked at Stiles and Derek. “I know _you_ two will be having a good night, at least.”

“Wait,” the sheriff said. “I assumed Derek would be staying with you.”

Laura looked uncomfortable. “He doesn’t want to spend the night with Stiles?”

“I’m fairly sure he does, but—”

“I wish I could invite you over,” Laura told Derek, “but I’m not really set up for guests right now.”

Everyone was looking at her.

“Long story,” she said brusquely. “Anyway. Gotta go. Later!”

And she was gone. The sheriff looked at Derek.

“I guess you’re spending the night after all,” he said. “I could make you bed down on the couch, but—” He cleared his throat. “—I’m not that heartless. Or something.”

Derek glanced at Stiles, who was openly grinning.

“So in exchange for allowing you to spend the night with my son, I’m going to lay down some ground rules.”

Stiles groaned. “Oh my god Dad please no. We don’t need The Talk.”

“First,” the sheriff said, ignoring Stiles. “Keep it down. I don’t want to hear or know about anything.” The sheriff pointed a finger at Derek’s face. “Second, I don’t want you touching my son—even on the elbow—unless you have obtained his _enthusiastic_ consent. Same goes for you, Stiles. Third, you use protection. No exceptions. Fourth, you’re coming to breakfast tomorrow.”

Derek’s mouth was open. He closed it. Said, “Okay. Yes. Yes, sir.”

Stiles was goggling like his father had suddenly turned into an alien. Or a werewolf. “Who are you and what have you done with my dad??” he said.

“Funny,” the sheriff said. “Now, I’m exhausted, so I’ll leave this to the two of you to clean up.” He looked at Stiles almost wistfully. “Somehow I imagined your first relationship going differently,” he said. “And happening when you were much, much older.”

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” Stiles said.

“You’re just growing up so fast. I wish your mom had been here to see this. Or to put a stop to it.” He shook his head. “Good night, boys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up . . . smut????


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised: a bit of smut.
> 
> Also, I don't know what the boundary between 'mature' and 'explicit' is, but I figure I crossed that line a couple chapters ago at least, so I've raised the rating accordingly.

Cleaning up after dinner felt like old times for a moment—he and Laura jostling and complaining, constantly in each other’s way even in the Hale house’s big farmhouse kitchen. His mother would tolerate their grumbling and sniping for one and a half minutes, and then would flash her alpha stare at them, along with a gentle snarl, until they closed their mouths and hung their heads and began clearing away in earnest.

His mother had always done the dishes. It was a ritual of hers; as the alpha she probably should have spent her time doing more important things, but that was the one chore she never agreed to give up. First she snugged the rubber stopper into the mouth of the drain, then she squirted in the detergent. Finally she filled the sink, the water straight-hot and steaming, a cloud of foam and bubbles churning up on the surface. When she was done, her hands were always lobster-red up to the elbows.

Derek asked her once, why the scalding water? Didn’t it hurt? She’d looked at him, hands slowing on the plate she was scrubbing.

“It gets the dishes cleaner,” she said. Then she shrugged and smiled. “Or at least they feel cleaner, when the water is hot enough to burn.”

Derek was up to his elbows in a sink full of hot, soapy water when Stiles came back with the rest of the dishes.

“We have a dishwasher,” Stiles said.

“Oh.” Derek looked at stack of clean plates he was making on the counter. “I didn’t think.”

Stiles smiled at him. “It’s okay. You keep going. I’ll dry.”

When the last plate was put away, Derek pushed Stiles up against the counter and kissed him. Stiles responded enthusiastically for for a moment, then pushed him away.

“I know my dad gave his permission,” Stiles said, “but I can’t help but think he’s trying to set me—us—up for something. You don’t think he’s waiting until he has proof we’re having sex to arrest you?”

Derek swallowed. “I hope not.”

“Me too. Especially because there’s no way I’m not having sex with you. A lot. Often. All the time.” Stiles grinned and kissed Derek. “But not down here, out in the open. Let’s go upstairs and lock ourselves in.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles barely had time to turn the lock before Derek was all up in his space, pressing him back against the bedroom door.

“Mmm,” he said around a mouthful of werewolf. “Demanding! I like it.”

Derek growled and his hands—scalding hot, and so huge!—were slipping up under Stiles’s shirt, fingers sliding over his sides, into the small of his back, dipping into his pants. An insistent mouth fastened on his neck, and Stiles was making a breathless, wounded noise that his father _definitely_ did not want to hear, and Derek was pressing their crotches together, the hard length of his cock as demanding and hungry as his mouth.

“I want—” Derek panted. “I want you inside me.”

“Uh …” Stiles found himself without a response.

Derek pulled away. “Is that okay? If you don’t want—”

“No, no, I want.” Stiles yanked him back in. “I definitely want.”

Derek was fumbling at Stiles’s belt now, skinning his jeans low on his hips, palming the young man through his boxers.

“Rrrghh,” Stiles said. He yanked his boxers down and put the werewolf’s hand on back on his cock. Derek’s grip was firm and for a second Stiles was afraid he was just going to come, no fanfare, so embarrassingly early that he wouldn’t be able to look Derek in the face again.

Derek was stroking him, and it was so good, but he wanted to touch Derek, too, and in his haste he forgot how to work a button fly, he was working blind because Derek was kissing him again, finally the button came undone and he was slipping his hand inside, feeling the werewolf tense and sigh as he ran a finger down his length before taking him in hand and giving him a squeeze.

“Naked,” Stiles said. “You need to be naked.”

“Okay,” Derek said, and that sounded like agreement, but instead of making his clothes disappear Derek was bending down and enveloping Stiles with his mouth.

Which was fine—no, more than fine. Stiles was fine with this. Oh god.

“Oh god,” he repeated out loud.

After a blissful, thought-free minute, Stiles nudged Derek’s head away. “I want to fuck you,” he said. “We decided I was going to fuck you, and I still want to do … that.”

“Yes,” Derek said. And now he was ripping his shirt over his head and shucking his jeans down and there was a gorgeous naked werewolf in Stiles’s bedroom.

Substantially cleaner and better-smelling than the first time, Stiles noted distantly.

They tumbled together onto the bed, and Stiles was humping Derek’s hip, they were kissing, Derek’s legs were around Stiles’s waist, Stiles’s hand was around Derek’s cock.

Stiles broke the kiss and moved down, taking Derek’s nipple in his mouth and biting it gently—Derek sounded like he was dying, a surprised, desperate gasp—then down over Derek’s abdomen, dragging his face along the skin, into the thatch of hair around that gorgeous cock. He gave Derek’s penis a loving lick, then moved on to his balls, to the hidden stretch of skin behind them, and finally to his hole.

Derek was trembling, holding his knees against his chest and whining, as Stiles probed at his anus with his tongue.

“You taste—” Stiles broke off and licked messily around Derek’s hole. “You taste amazing,” he said. He was slightly inside now, tonguing the smooth sweet flesh of the vestibule, pressing deeper as Derek grunted and seemed to stop breathing.

“Please,” Derek gasped. And, “Yes. Yes.”

Stiles lifted his head, letting one finger massage Derek’s hole, almost no pressure, just a teasing skim across and around the pucker, as he watched the werewolf’s face blanch and flush alternately.

“Are you ready?” Stiles asked. “Because I am. I am so, so ready for this. I warn you, I might not last very long, but I’ll try to make it good.”

“Do it,” Derek said.

Stiles flopped over to the side of the bed and pulled a condom and a bottle of lube out of the nightstand.

“Let me,” Derek said. He glopped some lube in his hand and then his finger was buried inside himself, all the way to the last knuckle. “Okay.” He took the condom and ripped it out of the packaging, smeared some lube in the tip and placed it on the head of Stiles’s cock. Then, in one smooth motion, the condom was sheathing Stiles to the root and Derek had him in his mouth again.

“If you want me to fuck you—” Stiles gasped. “You need to stop.”

Derek lay back, baring his hole and urging Stiles in with his heels.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Stiles said. He pressed the tip of his cock against Derek, leaned in slightly. The hole gave, the ring of muscle lapping barely open.

“Harder,” Derek said.

He pressed in, and for a second nothing happened. Then Derek’s hole was swallowing him halfway—a pause—then all the way down. Derek was like a huge fist around him, gentle and yet firm, with a band of pressure around the root of his cock that had him gasping.

“Oh god,” Derek said. “Yes. Nnngg.” He set his heels against Stiles’s ass and began spurring him even deeper. “I want it hard,” Derek said.

Stiles did not need the encouragement. He was already moaning, his knees slipping on the sheets as he buried himself in Derek to the hilt, thrusting steadily.

Derek’s mouth was open, his head lolling back, and every few thrusts he groaned. “Stiles,” he said. “Ohhhh. _Stiles._ ” His hand was on his own cock, shiny with lube and only half-hard, but that was normal, Stiles told himself.

As if Stiles knew what was _normal_ when you were _fucking somebody._

“I’m close,” Stiles gasped.

“Yeah,” Derek said, gripping himself even more tightly. “Come—I want you to come—inside me.”

And Stiles obeyed, the orgasm cracking through him like lightning as he pushed in, trying to burrow his way inside Derek, a strangled mewling squeezing from his throat. A second later Derek bucked and grunted and came all over his belly.

 

* * *

 

“What are you thinking about?” Derek said a few minutes later.

They were lying on Stiles’s bed, their limbs tangled, their bodies sticky and sated and drained.

“I was imagining what it would be like for you to fuck me,” Stiles said.

Derek felt himself frown.

“No?” Stiles said. “Okay, no worries. It was just a thought. A really sexy thought, but if you’re not comfortable—”

“I could hurt you,” Derek said.

Stiles was quiet for a moment. “You haven’t hurt me so far,” he said. “Why would you start just because your dick was in my ass?”

“We heal,” Derek said. “Werewolves. You probably couldn’t hurt me if you wanted to. Well, you could cause me pain, but you couldn’t _injure_ me.” He took a deep breath. “I could injure you, though. I’m … very strong.”

Stiles giggled. “You may think you’re talking me out of this, but you’re just fueling the fantasy now.” He pressed himself closer to Derek. “The idea of you holding me down, having your way with me? Making me squirm, making me beg? Totally hot. Hot like lava.”

Derek growled. “It’s not a good idea,” he said.

Stiles buried his face in Derek’s neck. “Derek,” Stiles said, his voice slightly muffled. “We will never do anything you don’t want to do. You heard my dad: enthusiastic consent, always, or it’s a no-go.” He gave Derek a full-body squeeze. “Just, if you ever change your mind—let me know. Okay?”

Derek sighed. “I promise, if I ever change my mind, I’ll bring it up.”

“Good,” Stiles said. He shifted away slightly, and Derek felt the tacky surface of their bellies sticking together. “Wanna get cleaned up?”

“Sure,” Derek said.

“Shower?” Stiles waggled an eyebrow suggestively.

“That sounds … fantastic,” Derek said.

And it was.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long, guys! I'll try to be better.
> 
> P.S. I've already found a couple errors. ...Sorry? If you run across any more, let me know in the comments and I'll fix them.

The first few seconds after she woke were best and the worst. Confusion that she wasn't in Brooklyn, in the soft queen bed she'd bought at a garage sale three years ago. The stabbing second when she opened her eyes and she was back before the fire, waking up in the old twin bed against the wall, the sunlight falling across her face. And finally the realization: this _was_ her childhood room, only it was a pathetic, gutted shell in a crumbling house of horrors. Air thick with the stench of char, ceiling patterned with fans of smoke damage, rivers of grime.

She sat up. She'd rescued Peter's old mattress from his room, since her bed had gone up in flames six years before. She didn't think he would mind—he had a new place to sleep in town. She'd seen to that, before she left.

Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number, with an area code she didn't recognize.

_Hello, Laura._

She stared at it for a minute before replying. _Who is this?_

Her phone vibrated again almost immediately. _No one you know._

_How'd you get this number?_

Again the immediate reply. _We have a mutual acquaintance._

She rolled her eyes. _Okay. Who?_

_I'd prefer not to disclose that at this time._

Laura set the phone down. Whoever it was on the other end, the conversation was obviously a waste of her time.

The kitchen was completely ruined, so as usual she had the choice between cold Pop-Tarts or going out for breakfast. Since it was Saturday, she decided on both: one Pop-Tart now to quiet her stomach, followed by a workout, followed by a mountain of greasy diner food.

She spent thirty minutes working out. Pushups, handstand press-ups, chin-ups. Flips, jumps and other acrobatics. A quick sprint through the Preserve.

When she got back to the house, she saw she'd received another text.

_We should talk._

She felt her lip curl. _I'm struggling to imagine what you and I could have to talk about._

_Really? And here I'd heard you were the imaginative one._

Again she was sucked back, before the fire, this time watching herself grow up. Here she was roping Derek into an endless and increasingly elaborate game of werewolves vs. hunters that often ended in broken bones. There she was forcing him to help her act out the plot of a book she was obsessed with. And over there she was was getting in trouble for wrapping him in chains so he would sit still and listen to her tell stories.

She supposed she had been the imaginative one, once, but it had been years since she'd felt the fizz of ideas inside her. Maybe the ideas had burned up in the fire, too.

She swallowed and sent another text. _What do you want._

_I know what brought you here._

Laura doubted it. Deaton was the only one she'd mentioned the mutilated deer to, and she was sure she'd been subtle enough about her interest to keep him from realizing it was the reason she was back in Beacon Hills.

 _Try again,_ she replied.

_I can get you the truth._

She huffed, annoyed. _The truth about what?_

_About the fire._

She stared at the screen for several minutes, brow knit, drumming her fingers on her thigh, before putting her phone away again.

 

* * *

 

Stiles woke up to a knock at the bedroom door. Derek was a hot pressure against his back. The alarm clock read 9:00—a decadent, lazy Saturday morning wakeup time as far as his dad was concerned.

"Yeah," he said.

The door opened and his dad stuck his head in.

"Who's up for breakfast?" he said.

"Ugh," Stiles said. "Couldn't we shoot for brunch instead?"

The sheriff smiled. "Your choice is between honoring our agreement and coming to breakfast, or my arresting your boyfriend. Not between breakfast and brunch." His dad pointed a finger at him. "Two minutes." He disappeared, whistling cheerfully.

"UGH," Stiles said.

He looked over his shoulder. Derek was wide awake.

"Breakfast?" Stiles said.

"I could eat," Derek said.

"Great." He buried his face in the pillow. "Why do I feel like I'm already being ganged up on."

 

* * *

 

The sheriff must not have felt like cooking—or didn't think he could get away with cooking bacon—because they ended up at Lucky's Diner a half an hour later. Stiles still felt like the dead and was contemplating how much coffee he would need to down in order to rejoin the living.

They had barely ordered when Derek suddenly sat up straight, nose scenting the air.

"Laura?" he said.

Stiles looked around. Laura was nowhere in sight.

"You can _smell_ her?" Stiles said.

"I can smell a lot of things," Derek said. "And if she's close enough to smell, she's probably close enough to hear you."

Laura came in the door of the diner at that moment, an amused smirk on her face.

"So are you particularly fragrant or something?" Stiles said when Laura walked up. He sniffed experimentally. "Let me guess. TRESemmé?"

" _Stiles,_ " Derek said.

Laura laughed. "Not TRESemmé." She bent down and held a hank of hair in front of Stiles's nose. "Try again."

"Uh," Stiles said. He took a sniff. The most he could say was that she smelled . . . woodsy. And a tiny bit like smoke.

Derek's face looked thunderous and his grip on Stiles's hand was bruising.

"Yeah, I have no idea," Stiles said, trying to press himself farther into the back of the booth. "I was just joking. TRESemmé's what my mom—" He broke off. "Anyway."

The sheriff scooted over and Laura plopped down next to him. Their food came, and Stiles pretended not to see the pile of bacon on his dad's plate. Laura ordered a coffee, no cream, and the Mountain 'o' Meat.

When the waitress was gone, Derek glared over at his sister again. "You're staying at the house," Derek said. His jaw was clenched.

"What?" Stiles said.

Laura looked down. "It seemed appropriate," she said.

"Are you punishing yourself?" Derek seemed a little calmer.

"The house? You mean the old Hale house?" The sheriff did not look happy.

"Maybe," Laura said to Derek. She turned to Stiles's dad. "Of course I'm not staying in a condemned death trap, sheriff. That would be ridiculous."

"And illegal," the sheriff said. "It's county property."

"Laura." Derek sounded tired. He put his hand over hers. "It wasn't your fault."

"No," Laura said. "You know whose fault it _really_ wasn't? My little brother's. My god, you were _thirteen._ I can tell you blame yourself, and you need to stop before I get pissed and wipe the floor with your sorry ass."

"Fine," Derek said. But Stiles didn't think he was actually agreeing.

 

* * *

 

"So, Derek, tell me about what you've been doing for the last six years," the sheriff said.

Derek blinked and swallowed. Stiles's stomach dropped.

"Dad," Stiles said.

"No, it's okay," Derek said. "Uh. Well, I stayed mostly . . . off the grid. Moving around."

"Homeless," the sheriff said.

"Dad."

"Yeah," Derek said, looking abashed.

"Any substance abuse problems?"

" _Dad._ " Stiles waved a hand in front of the sheriff's face. "Hello?"

His dad just pushed his hand away and didn't even look at him. Of course. Laura had her napkin pressed over her mouth.

"No," Derek said.

"I'm not trying to get you in trouble," the sheriff said. "I need to know so I can help."

"No, no drugs," Derek said. "Really."

"Prostitution?"

"No." Derek was bright red. "No pr— none of that."

Laura seemed to be crying and/or choking. It was hard to tell.

" **DAD.** " Stiles was about ready to gag his dad with a napkin. "That's enough. No more. Just stop. If you love me, you'll stop. If you love me, your only son and family, you'll shut up and we'll pretend this conversation never even—"

"My son is interested in you," the sheriff said, not even glancing at Stiles. "I'm only looking out for him."

"You're only _murdering me with embarrassment,_ you mean, oh my _god,_ " Stiles moaned.

"I understand," Derek said. He seemed sincere.

"Whew," Laura said. She was drying her eyes with her napkin. "I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks, sheriff."

"Anytime," Stiles's dad said.

 

* * *

 

The sheriff was quietly eating his bacon, but Derek could tell Stiles was still alert for another round of interrogation. Derek turned to Laura.

"Have you been here this whole time, then?" He glanced around. "In Beacon Hills, I mean."

"No," she said. "After . . . er. Afterwards, I made all the arrangements. The funeral. Peter's care. Then I . . . left. It was too painful here. The memories."

Derek nodded. "So why'd you come back?"

"Thought it was time," she said.

She was smiling, but it was a lie. And she would know he'd be able to tell, so . . . something she couldn't talk about in front of the humans?

"I'm going to see Peter," she said. "After breakfast. You should come."

"Uh, I don't know." He looked away.

She grabbed his chin. Forced him to look at her. "No. You're coming. We'll go and we'll hold Peter's hands and we'll tell him what we've been up to. And we'll cry. And we'll hug him. Because we're family, and because he would want us there. And because you still love him, you know you do." Then she gave him a bone-creaking hug.

When she let go, Derek wiped his hand across his eyes. He looked at Stiles. "Will you come with us?"

"Um," Stiles said. He glanced at Laura, then at his dad.

"Go on, son," the sheriff said.

"Great," Laura said. "It's settled, then."

 

* * *

 

The drive to the hospital was pretty quiet, which Derek appreciated. He was nervous enough about seeing his uncle again—the cheerful, laughing uncle he loved and missed, the uncle who had burned because of him—without any teasing or grilling from his sister. Stiles had volunteered to sit in the back, and he kept one hand on Derek's shoulder the whole way. Laura occasionally glanced at the two of them, but she didn't say anything.

As they parked, Laura's phone buzzed. She looked at the screen as she was getting out and made a face. "Why don't they give up?"

"Who?" Derek said. He helped Stiles out of the back seat and slung an arm around his shoulder.

"Someone's been texting me all day. Won't give their name, just keep saying they have the 'truth' about the fire. They want to meet up and have a heart-to-heart or something."

"Whoa," Stiles said. "That sounds—"

"Fishy?" Laura nodded. "Yup. That's why I've been ignoring them."

Derek sighed. "If you want to know the truth about the fire . . ." He swallowed. "I can tell you what happened."

Laura pulled him into a quick hug. "We'll compare notes some other time. Right now, we're gonna say hello to Peter. I bet he's missed us—it's been six years."

"You mean you haven't—"

"No," Laura said. She looked somber. "To be honest, I couldn't face him either. But I feel braver with you here."

Derek let Stiles take his hand and intertwine their fingers. He was ready. Maybe.

"Let's go," Derek said.


	14. Chapter 14

Stiles didn’t have much experience walking and holding hands. It was a lot more awkward than he’d expected, although that was generally the case for most activities as soon as he was part of the equation.

He didn’t let go of Derek’s hand, though.

“I forget which way it is,” Laura said as they walked in the entrance. She glanced at Derek. “What? It was six years ago, and I wasn’t in my best place. You know. Intellectually.”

Fortunately there was a familiar face at the nurse’s station.

“Oh hey, Mrs. McCall,” Stiles said. “We’re looking for the coma ward.”

“Long-term care,” Laura corrected. “We’re here to see Peter Hale?”

“You must be Laura,” Mrs. McCall said. “And—” She looked at Derek, confused. “Wait.”

“I’m Derek,” Derek said. “And I’m … back.”

“From the dead.” Stiles flashed spirit fingers with his free hand. “Ta-da!”

Mrs. McCall looked unimpressed. “I don’t need to call your dad, do I, Stiles? I assume he already knows about … whatever this is?”

“Yes he knows, _god,_ it’s like no one trusts me or something.”

“I wonder why,” Mrs. McCall said, shaking her head. “All right. Okay. Long-Term Care is on the other side of the hospital. It has its own entrance, but you can get there from here, too. Just take this hallway until it dead-ends, turn left, then turn right, and you’ll come out by the nurse’s desk. Got it?”

“Yeah, thanks Melissa,” Laura said.

“Mrs. McCall,” Stiles said, nodding.

Derek mumbled something and nodded as well before dragging Stiles off after Laura.

* * *

 

Of course they got lost.

“I knew we should’ve gone around outside,” Laura growled.

“We’re headed the wrong way,” Stiles said. “My sense of direction is infallible. Ask anyone.”

Laura shot him a skeptical glance.

“No, really! I went on a hike once—during my brief, ill-fated and unwilling flirtation with Boy Scouts—and we got lost in the Preserve. Totally turned around. It was all thanks to me we got out alive and almost in one piece. Me and my unerring sense of where the closest source of curly fries is. And since the closest curly fries are _that_ way—” (he flung an arm out to the right) “—then we must be heading south, when I’m pretty sure the Long-Term Care wing was west. Or was it east? I get my wests and easts mixed up.”

“We actually are heading south,” Laura said. “But we’re heading south because that’s the direction Melissa was pointing.” She let out an annoyed huff. “If this place didn’t reek of disinfectant and medication and _death_ I’d be able to sniff Peter out wherever he is.”

“Guys?” Derek said. He was pointing at a sign that said “Long-Term Care.” “I think we need to go this way.”

“Told you it was either east or west,” Stiles said.

Laura rolled her eyes and growled. “We must have passed it. Was Melissa _trying_ to lead us wrong?”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Stiles said. “Mrs. McCall’s awesome. She probably forgot an extra left or right somewhere.”

Now they were facing a set of double doors that blocked the hallway. A set of _locked_ doubled doors.

“The sign said—” Laura clutched her head. “This was the direction that sign pointed, right?”

“Yes,” Derek said.

“Pretty sure,” Stiles said.

“Well then, we have no choice, do we?” Laura said. And she kicked one of the doors open with a crash and marched right through and up to the nurse’s station.

Stiles didn’t have a lot of experience with nurses other than Scott’s mom. Mrs. McCall always had an air of barely-leashed frenzy—like she had just run up from doing something important, life-or-death, and had paused for a second before dashing somewhere else, hair a-frizz and scrubs slightly askew.

This nurse looked like she was usually very put together. Sleek auburn hair, a crisp white lab coat. Just now, however, the effect was ruined by the way she was gaping at them. The phone she'd been texting on was frozen in midair, and her hand seemed to be trembling slightly.

“Hello,” Laura said. She glanced at the nurse’s name tag. “Jennifer, is it? We’re here to see my uncle. Peter Hale.”

“Oh.” The nurse cleared her throat. “It’s not visiting hours right—”

Laura leaned over the desk, a ferocious smile on her face.

The nurse flinched back.

“Jennifer. Listen. All I need is for you to tell me which room my uncle is in, and then we’ll be out of your hair for about, oh, an hour. Doesn’t that sound nice? The alternative is that I stay here and smile at you like this—” (the smile grew wider and even toothier) “—until you tell me. And while that’s kind of fun for me, it’s probably not all that fun for you.”

“No,” Jennifer said. She jumped. “I mean, yes, I’ll take you right there.”

Peter’s room was at the end of the hall. The nurse seemed to want to linger, but Laura flashed that wolfish smile at her again and slammed the door in her face.

“She’s creepy,” Stiles said. “I’m calling it right now. There’s something going on with Miss Competent Serial Killer Nurse.”

“I agree,” Derek growled.

“She’s probably just in love with Uncle Peter,” Laura said in a bored voice. “Dreams of him waking up and marrying her or something.”

There was a man in a wheelchair near the bed. Handsome and smooth-faced—except for the burn scar on his cheek, and the vacant expression. Laura took a seat at his side.

“Hey, Peter,” she said. She put her hand over his. “It’s Laura. Your favorite niece. Remember?”

Derek at on the bed and took his other hand. “Hey, Uncle Peter,” he whispered.

Stiles lasted five minutes before he went looking for a vending machine.

“I’m just gonna—” he said, and slipped out the door, leaving Derek and Laura to mutter broken apologies and promises to their comatose uncle.

He walked back to the nurse’s station. The nurse seemed a thousand percent more poised and blank-faced and approximately twice as murderous as before, but he really wanted a Coke. Or a snack. Or at least something to fiddle with.

“Is there a vending machine somewhere?” he asked.

She hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Down that hall,” she said, pointing.

He didn’t like turning his back on her, but when he glanced over his shoulder she was still behind her desk, watching him. The hallway seemed disused, and the fluorescent lighting was glitching and fritzing all over the place.

Totally a horror movie set.

But there was the vending machine, and it was even stocked, and there were no cobwebs or serial killers—or werewolves—hiding behind it, which Stiles decided was a good sign.

“Reese’s!” he said. “Score!”

Except of course the Reese’s refused to vend. The package was on the very bottom row, stubbornly hanging on by a single orange corner. He kicked the machine. No luck. Maybe if he tried sticking his hand up from inside—

He could feel his fingertips brushing the package. He strained and stretched his arm a little more.

“Come on,” he groaned. “Come ON.”

He froze when he felt a sharp point press against the side of his neck.

“Hold still,” he heard the nurse say. Her smug, smooth face—as well as the syringe she was holding—was reflected in the vending machine window. “Aconite is so much more dramatic when administered to werewolves, but it works on humans, too.”


	15. Chapter 15

“ _Wolfsbane??_ ” Stiles said. “Could you be any more of a cliché, seriously.”

“I’m not one the one who’s the cliché here,” Jennifer said. “Now pull your arm very slowly from the machine.”

He tried. No really, he did try.

“Um, I’m stuck,” he said.

“Do I need to remind you that killing you right now would be easier than keeping you alive?”

“I get that,” he said. “But the door is wedged shut on my elbow. I’ll need my other hand to—”

“Fine. Slowly. Any sudden moves and I jam this home and leave you to convulse and die on the floor. Clear?”

“Clear,” muttered Stiles. He unwedged his arm and slowly pulled it out.

The Reese’s chose that moment to drop free, falling with a _thunk_ to the bottom of the machine.

“Face on the floor, hands behind your back,” Jennifer directed.

“Can I at least have my candy?”

“No. Face down. Now.”

“Pleeeeease???”

She snarled, and he gulped when she pressed the point of the needle harder against his neck.

“Okay okay, face down, I get it.”

Something cold and hard _snicked_ closed around his wrists. Handcuffs.

“Kinky,” he said.

“You’re not my type,” she said, the sneer evident in her voice.

“Oh? You like them comatose and covered in burn scars, I take it?”

She kicked him in the ribs and he groaned.

“Why he wants you alive, I have no idea,” she said. “But try me too hard and I will _gladly_ put you beyond the reach of any human help.”

Another kick, this one to his hip. Stiles groaned.

“Get. Away. From him.” Derek was standing in the hallway. His eyes were glowing blue and his hands had twisted into claws.

The nurse laughed and drew her foot back for a third blow. Stiles didn’t even see Derek move—one instant he was twenty feet away; the next his hand was planted on Jennifer’s chest and he was shoving her back into the vending machine. The plexiglas window flexed and broke. There was a crunching sound and Jennifer’s scream ended in a horrible wet gurgle. Suddenly there was blood everywhere.

Stiles flopped onto his side and scooted away from the nurse’s body as quickly as possible. There was a hole in the center of her chest and Derek’s arm was gore up to the elbow.

“Oh god,” Stiles said.

He met Derek’s eyes.

“You okay?” Derek said. His face was a warped parody of a Hollywood wolf-man, and he seemed to be having trouble speaking around the fangs that bristled in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. He got on his knees. “A little help?” He held his hands out behind him where Derek could see.

“Ahhhhhh…” Derek said, a loose release of air, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he was on the ground, muscles spasming. The half-empty syringe stood out from his shoulder where Jennifer must have jammed it in their brief, one-sided struggle.

“Derek?” Stiles wrenched himself awkwardly to his feet. “DEREK?”

Derek opened his mouth, but the only thing that came out was a spray of black bile. He flopped once more and lay still.

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” Stiles muttered. He nudged Derek as gently as he could with his foot, but there was no response. “Okay, cuffs. Get the cuffs off and maybe—” He knelt by the nurse’s body, and began fumbling with her pockets. He was sure he was going to dislocate at least one of his shoulders, but Derek was dying and a mangled shoulder joint was the least of his worries.

The key wasn’t in any of Jennifer’s pockets. Stiles was sobbing now. “Derek! Hold on, Derek. Just a second, I’ll be right there—”

“Stiles.” Laura was shaking him gently. “Hold still, it’s okay,” she said. She grabbed the cuffs and wrenched them apart, the flimsy chain parting with a hard _ping_. “I’ll carry him. You grab the syringe. _Don’t lose any of the serum._ ”

She lifted her brother from the ground. Derek’s body was boneless and loose, his head lolling back over Laura’s arm. Stiles pulled the syringe free and followed Laura at a run.

“We have to denature that,” she said, nodding at Stiles’s hand. “Heat is best. But we have so little—”

“The staff room,” Stiles interrupted. “They gotta have a microwave.”

Laura sniffed the air. “This way,” she said.

The staff room was locked, but Laura barely paid the door any attention, just bulled right through, ignoring the explosion of wood splinters falling around her.

Stiles ducked through after her.

“Get a bowl,” she ordered. “Something microwave safe. Squirt the serum into the bowl and microwave it until it boils.”

He couldn’t find a bowl—had that nurse even been human? did she actually eat food?—but there was a dingy Tupperware in one cupboard. He emptied the wolfsbane into the container and stuck it in the microwave. It only took a few seconds for the serum to foam up angrily.

“Okay, get it back in the syringe and inject it right into his chest.”

Stiles turned around, the syringe ready. Laura had shredded Derek’s shirt off, revealing the injection point–an ulcerating sore dripping black pus and radiating black lines along across Derek’s chalk-white skin.

“ _QUICKLY,_ ” Laura snapped.

Stiles jammed the syringe home, pushing down on the plunger to expel the hot, viscous—and hopefully denatured—wolfsbane into Derek’s system.

Stiles had a hand pressed against his mouth.

“Come on, Derek,” Laura snarled. “Come ON, you stupid asshole, you are not leaving me like this.”

A strangled noise issued from Derek’s mouth. “Y’r th—the _asshole,_ ” he gasped. “Lemme go.”

Laura did not let him go. She was crying, and Stiles was crying, and they were wrestling with each other over who got to hug Derek. Laura won, but not for long.

 

* * *

 

“How’d you find me?” Stiles said at last.

Derek blushed. “You were gone a long time. I got worried.”

“Okay,” Stiles said.

“Just tell him,” Laura said, poking her brother in the ribs.

“I hate you,” Derek told her.

“Tell me what?”

“My little brother is so obsessed with you—” She fended off a swipe from Derek. “—so obsessed that he heard your heart rate change from all the way in Peter’s room.”

“Really?”

Derek looked horribly embarrassed. “You were upset,” he said. “I was worried.”

“The idea of you being able to eavesdrop on me from so far away is a little weird,” Stiles said. “But it obviously worked out this time.” He gave Derek a kiss. “So. Uh. What are we going to do about the, er. The body?”

“Nothing,” Laura said. “It would be impossible to cover it up without, I dunno, burning down the hospital. We’ll just pretend we don’t know what happened to her, and hope the cops are confused enough by the fact that she was apparently mauled by an animal to suspect any of us.”

“You realize the cops are my _dad,_ right?” Stiles said. “Besides, what animal can stick its paw right through someone’s ribcage?”

“You know the sheriff better than I do,” Laura said. “How would he react if we called him and showed him that scene in there?”

Stiles sighed. “He’d detain us. Interrogate us. And if he thought we weren’t telling the whole truth he’d—well. We might all end up behind bars.”

“That’s what I thought,” Laura said. “Derek, you get cleaned up, and then we’re out of here.”

Derek began rinsing as best he could in the staff room sink. “Where to?” he asked.

“I’ll drop you two at Stiles’s house,” Laura said.

“My dad’ll be there,” Stiles said nervously.

“Good,” Laura said. “Act obnoxiously normal. Have sex. Whatever you usually do.”

“ _Laura,_ ” Derek said. His face was red.

“What? I said whatever you usually do. I’m not assuming anything.”

Derek growled.

“No, I’m on board with that,” Stiles said. “I could use some obnoxious sex. Good plan, Laura.” He held out his fist for a fist bump.

“I don’t know you,” Derek said. “Either of you.”

“What’ll you be doing?” Stiles asked Laura.

“I have some errands to run,” she said evasively. “A couple leads to follow up on.”

“Leads?” Derek said. “Leads about what?”

Laura sighed. “I’ll tell you about it in the car. Come on, let’s go.”

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay obviously I had more to say today.
> 
> Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about investigating a crime scene. Maybe less than nothing. Also I know nothing about animals, animal track identification or forming stable romantic relationships with other people. So forgive any inconsistencies or errors.

When they made it out to the car, Laura stopped. She seemed fidgety and undecided.

"What's up?" Stiles said.

"There's just—I forgot something," she said. She blinked. Her eyes flickered, the actual color changing, brightening. Flashing red, then dulling back her usual green. Red/green. Red/green/red. She put a hand to her head, closed her eyes. When she opened them her irises were green again.

"Forgot what?" Derek said. He looked worried.

"I can't quite—I'm sure it'll come to me." She put the key in the lock and paused again. "You know what, Stiles, would you mind taking my car and driving you and Derek back to your house?"

"Um . . . I guess? Why?"

"Here," she said, and dropped the keys in his hand. "I'll swing by to pick it up later."

She jogged off around the corner of the hospital.

"What the hell?" Stiles said.

"I don't know. She seemed . . . strange," Derek said.

"Did you notice her eyes?"

"Yeah," Derek said. He did not sound happy.

 

* * *

 

The sheriff was watching some football game when they got back.

"Hey, Dad," Stiles called. "We're heading upstairs."

"Have you had lunch?" the sheriff called back.

"Uh . . . we're not hungry?"

There was silence from the living room. Stiles paused unhappily at the bottom of the stairs, knowing what was coming. The sheriff appeared in the hallway.

"You're not hungry," his dad said. "Stiles, you are _always_ hungry. What's going on?"

"Nothing! I just want to go up and, er, spend some time with my boyfriend. That's all. I am a healthy almost-seventeen-year-old boy!"

The sheriff held out a hand in protest. "Jesus, I am _not_ supposed to know this. Remember our agreement?"

"You asked, Dad," Stiles said grouchily. "Come on, Derek. Let's go do absolutely nothing behind the closed door of my room."

Upstairs, once the bedroom door was closed, they turned and looked at each other.

"We should have eaten," Stiles said. "I knew I would mess up this 'acting normal' crap."

"It's okay," Derek said. "Neither of us is used to this."

"Ugh. Now I'm hungry. You think he'd be more suspicious if we went down and got something to eat now?"

Derek shrugged. "Maybe."

"No, not maybe," Stiles said. "Definitely. RRrgghhhhhh."

He flopped down on the bed. Derek flopped down next to him.

"I thought you were gone earlier," Stiles said. "I thought you'd died."

"I know," Derek said.

"We only just met, you know?" Stiles rolled over and wrapped himself around the werewolf as tight as he could. "Less than two days ago. And I already can't imagine what it would be like if you weren't here."

"Yeah," Derek said.

"Is that crazy? Am I going crazy?"

Derek sighed. "Have you been in love before?"

"Well, I've been in love with Lydia Martin since third grade. And with Danny Mahealani since middle school."

"Okay," Derek said. It sounded like he was smiling. "But . . . have you been in a relationship?"

"No."

"From what I've heard it's usual to fall head over heels like this. Especially when you're young. Especially when it's your first time. It doesn't mean it's not real, or that it won't last, but . . ."

"But?"

"But it should quiet down eventually. Become more manageable."

"Have you been in love before?"

Derek grimaced. "I thought I was in love. But it wasn't real."

"Oh." Stiles gave Derek a squeeze. "This feels real," he said. "But even if it isn't, I'm glad it's happening."

 

* * *

 

Sheriff Stilinski watched his son and Derek Hale vanish upstairs. He knew Stiles, and he knew a diversionary tactic when he saw one. But he also had no doubt that he did not want to go up and continue interrogating the two of them right then—not if he valued his mental and emotional health.

Sometimes it was easier to pretend your child didn't do certain things. Like have sex. Much like he was sure Stiles pretended his dad had never, ever had sex, ever.

It had been long enough that it was starting to feel true, the sheriff thought tiredly. He made himself a sandwich and went back to watching the game.

The call came a half hour later. The sheriff heard Stiles's bedroom door open when he picked up the telephone, so he kept his responses brief.

"Uh-huh. Okay. I understand. I'll be right there."

Stiles was halfway down the stairs and Derek was looking down from the landing when he hung up.

"Something going on?" Stiles asked.

His son's eyes were alight with their usual mischievous avidity.

"Uh, some kind of altercation at the hospital. You stay here with Derek. I . . ." He sighed. It was supposed to be his day off. "I don't know when I'll be back."

He saw Stiles mouth the word "altercation" to Derek, and then the sheriff was out the door and jumping in his cruiser.

The dispatcher directed him to the Long-Term Care wing, which gave the sheriff a funny-awful feeling, since hadn't Stiles and Derek just been there?

"What's going on?" he asked when he got out.

Two of the deputies looked at each other.

"Uh, we don't really know, Sheriff," Sanders said. "One of the patients is missing, and there's a sign of a struggle in his room. The window of the patient's room is broken, too, which must've taken some doing, since it was double-paned and reinforced. And the nurse who was supposed to be on shift this afternoon is missing as well. We found a whole lot of blood down one of the hallways, but no body. Signs of a struggle there, too. Also, uh." The deputy cleared her throat.

"What?" the sheriff barked.

"Animal hair," she said. "In both locations."

"So we have a _second_ possible animal attack in less than a week. Two _indoor_ animal attacks. And possibly two more victims."

"That's right, sir," Quigley said. "And—" Another unhappy pause.

"WHAT."

"A staff room was broken into, and Forensics says they found traces of blood in the sink."

"So you're saying a cougar waltzed into the Long-Term Care wing at Beacon Hills Hospital, messily savaged the nurse, attacked a patient, and then . . . washed its paws in the sink?" Sheriff Stilinski dropped his head into his hands. "Oh, and then they all vanished. Of course."

When he looked up both deputies were studying the ground and/or their feet. He sighed.

"Relax. It's not your fault. We'll keep going, keep doing our job, and eventually we'll find out what really happened."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Sanders," he said. "Walk me around the scene. Quigley, you go see if Forensics has any updates."

Sanders turned and motioned for him to follow her. "The patient's room is right over here, sir."

"What patient?"

"Uh, Peter Hale. Wait." She checked her notes. "Yes, Peter Hale."

Jesus fucking Christ, he thought. Of course. Naturally.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Carry on." Oh, Stiles was not going to enjoy the talk they would have that evening. Not at all.

 

* * *

 

Laura had spaced out while washing her hands. What had she been thinking about? Something she'd forgotten. Something she needed to do. It was important—

Right. The chemistry teacher.

Harris. Adrian Harris. She'd heard some interesting rumors about his past that she wanted to follow up on.

She'd gotten his scent at the school, and she was pretty sure she could track him to his home. Terrify him into telling her the truth. But she was so tired. She was always tired lately.

"I'm allergic to Beacon Hills," she said, and smiled wryly at her reflection in the mirror.

Someone knocked on the door. "You gonna take all day or what?" a rough female voice said.

"Coming," Laura said. She opened the door and shouldered past the woman waiting impatiently outside.

It was late afternoon. The gas station she'd made her pit stop at was on the outskirts of Beacon Hills, between the rundown residential area south of the tracks and the little warehouse district. When she'd come back to the area from New York she'd initially investigated one of the warehouses as a potential place to squat, before deciding to stick with her ruined family home for sentimental reasons.

The school was halfway across town. The Stilinski house—and her car—was halfway across town in the opposite direction. She sighed. A few more hours as a pedestrian, then. She shrugged and took off.

Harris was going to tell her the truth if he knew what was good for him.

 

* * *

 

The door to the animal clinic was still warped, but the glass had been cleaned up and the window boarded over. Sheriff Stilinski pushed his way inside, juggling the dog leash, the folder and his sunglasses.

Scott was cleaning the exam area when he got in.

"Hey, Scott," he said heartily. "Staying out of trouble?"

"Uh," Scott said. "Yeah?"

The sheriff wondered if Scott had been involved in whatever Stiles had been up to today, but he decided not to push any further.

Deaton appeared. "Sheriff!" he said pleasantly. "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Roscoe needs her stitches out," Sheriff Stilinski said. "And I had something I was hoping you could look at."

"Certainly, Sheriff," the veterinarian said. "Come on, Roscoe, up!"

He patted the exam table, and the sheriff lifted the dog onto the metal surface. The German Shepherd had no fear of the vet—in fact she couldn't seem to get enough of it. If only all the police dogs were so easy-going, the sheriff thought.

"Scott, can you prep?" Deaton looked at the sheriff. "Let's go to my office," he said.

Sheriff Stilinski followed the vet into the other room. He held out the folder of photos. "I was hoping you could take a look at this," he said. "Some kind of animal attack at the hospital. We were wondering if it could be the same one that killed that man in the clinic the other day."

The veterinarian perused the photos. Blood-drenched linoleum. A blood-spattered vending machine, plastic window shattered and bowed. More blood, just a few drops. Another broken window, glass this time. Deaton looked up, a puzzled look on his face.

"An animal did this?"

The sheriff shrugged. "We found more animal hair at the scene. We're having it analyzed. That's why I'm asking you—"

"What about the victim or victims? Were they clawed like the other one?"

"No victims yet," the sheriff admitted. "But that pool of blood is definitely human. And there doesn't seem to be any question—someone bled out there by that vending machine. And look at this." He pointed at the lower corner of one of the photos. "A bloody pawprint. Or something."

Deaton's eyes had narrowed. "That does resemble a animal print of some kind, but it's not one I recognize. Much too large for a wolf, let alone a coyote, but it's shaped wrong for a mountain lion. Also you'll notice the claws are out, which would seem to suggest a canid instead of a felid . . ." He tapped his lips thoughtfully. "I'm sorry, sheriff, that's all I can tell you. If you find an actual victim—but then, you'd be better off consulting an expert in any case."

"Of course," the sheriff said. "Thank you."

 

* * *

 

Stiles had made dinner—veggie lasagna with spinach salad on the side—and he and Derek were finishing their seconds when they heard the cruiser pull up.

The sheriff came in and looked at them without saying anything.

"Hungry, Dad?" Stiles said, indicating the dish of lasagna.

"Derek, would you mind going upstairs for a few minutes?" the sheriff said.

"Uh, no. No problem," Derek said, dropping his silverware. He gave Stiles an anxious look and fled.

The sheriff took a seat. He looked tired and old and beaten, and the sight made Stiles want to cry.

"Son," his dad said. "Is there any chance, if I ask you what happened at the hospital today, that you'll tell me the truth?"

Stiles felt his mouth go bone dry. He cleared his throat. "Why—why wouldn't I tell you the truth, Dad?"

"All right. What happened, then?"

"Well, we went to the hospital. We got there, oh, fifteen minutes after we left the diner. We didn't know where to go, so we asked Mrs. McCall at the front desk."

The sheriff was taking quick notes in his flip pad. "Go on."

"We kind of got lost? Between the front entrance and the Long-Term Care ward, I mean. We wandered for another good ten, fifteen minutes down there. When we finally found Long-Term Care, the nurse showed us to Peter's room. We hung out for about a half hour. Laura and Derek talked to Peter for a while. He didn't talk back." Stiles shrugged. "And we left."

"Do you remember any of the things Laura and Derek talked about?" his dad asked.

"I kind of zoned out," Stiles said sheepishly.

"Right," the sheriff said. He looked up. "You didn't happen to go get a snack at any point, did you? From one of the vending machines?"

"If I'd known where they were, I might've," Stiles said. "Dad, why are you asking me this? Why did you send Derek away?"

The sheriff sighed. "There was another attack," he said. "At the hospital this time. Specifically in the Long-Term Care wing."

"Wait. You mean, another attack like the one at the animal clinic."

"We think so. Nurse Sykes and Peter Hale are both missing—"

"Missing?"

"Yes. When was the last time you saw Nurse Sykes?"

"When we came in. She was gone when we left."

Another note in the notepad.

"You think she's—" He gulped. "Dead?"

"We don't know, Stiles," the sheriff said firmly. "And you are not going to repeat any of this to anybody. Including to Derek. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, Dad, of course."

"I mean it, Stiles."

"I'll keep my mouth shut, Dad. Jeez."

"Now I want you to go wait in your room while I ask Derek a few questions."

The sheriff followed Stiles upstairs. Derek was lying on the bed, a bored expression on his face.

"Derek, could you come with me?" the sheriff said. "It'll only take a minute."

Stiles spent that minute (though it felt more like an hour) pacing back and forth in his room. The nurse—or rather, the nurse's body—was gone. _Peter_ was gone. Without the body, the evidence of an animal attack had to be slimmer. If Laura was right, that is. Stiles had never heard of a cougar killing by punching a hole through its victim's chest—but then, normal humans couldn't do that, either, so . . . He tried to yank on his hair, but it was too short, and he gave up with a snarl.

Oh to be able to rip someone's throat out right now. Like that horrible Nurse Jennifer's—if she wasn't already very dead. He'd have to ask if lycanthropy was transmissible the way it was in the stories—if he was ever in danger for his life again, he wanted to have claws and fangs to bring out to defend himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to let you guys know I'm hard at work on the next few updates. Thanksgiving took up a huge chunk of time and I'm trying to get back on track. Hoping to have something new up in the next couple days!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing (and planning) more story right this second. Hopefully this second-hand flashback will tide you over while you wait for the real stuff.
> 
> Also: trigger warning in this chapter for a brief mention of hypothetical child sexual abuse.

They fell asleep wrapped around each other, legs intertwined, skin already sweating on contact but what the hell. It seemed like only seconds later when Stiles was startled awake by a loud groan. He lifted his head. In the moonlight he could see that Derek had turned away from him sometime during the night and was curled up in a ball, limbs twitching, head thrashing back and forth. Another groan, trailing off into a whine.

Stiles put out a hand and shook the werewolf's shoulder. "Derek."

The shoulder hunched away from him as if from a blow.

"Hey." He flung an arm over the man's chest, patted him briskly on the cheek. "Derek. Wake up."

Derek's eyes opened. "What?" he said, his voice hoarse and raspy.

"You were having a nightmare," Stiles said.

A tired nod. "Yeah."

Stiles curled closer to him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Derek sighed. "No."

"Okay."

"But I will anyway. If that's okay."

"Yeah. Sure. Uh. You can tell me anything you feel comfortable . . . getting off your chest."

"I was thirteen," Derek said. He was quiet for several seconds. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I've never told anyone this."

"Even Laura?"

"She knows the outline, but—I need to tell someone. And there's no one I'd rather tell than you."

"Okay. All right." He gave Derek a squeeze. "I'm listening."

"I was thirteen," Derek said again. "I was just starting to be able to control my shift during the full moon. I felt like such a _grown-up_." He barked a laugh that sounded more like a sob than a sound of amusement. "We went to public school, in Beacon Hills. Our parents sent us as soon as we weren't dangerous anymore. I didn't really have any friends, though. So when I met Kate—" He cut off. Shook his head. "I met Kate at the bowling alley. I hated bowling because I felt dangerous. So easy to hurt someone, so many fragile humans packed together, those heavy bowling balls careening everywhere—

"It was a birthday party. I'm not even sure why I was invited, to be honest. Probably the kid's mom just made him invite everyone in his class. I wasn't going to go, but Laura made me. Drove me to the alley, told me to 'enjoy myself for once, goddammit,' and drove off. She was seventeen, almost four years older than me. So mature and capable and responsible.

"I was never comfortable doing sports. When we sparred as pack members, we didn't have to worry about hurting each other. I mean, Mom could hurt us for real, but she rarely did. Otherwise, bites and bruises and claw marks would heal right up. But sports were this human thing, where humans pushed themselves, courted injury. Even though an injury for them could be . . . forever. And it would be so easy to hurt them, to kill them even. It would take no effort at all.

"So I was bowling. I let myself do okay—nothing spectacular, but I was holding my own. I hadn't accidentally maimed anyone, which was good. I started to relax, even to enjoy myself a little. And I noticed this woman bowling in the next lane. Beautiful form. Perfect form, really. So strong and athletic and sure of herself. And attractive, too, definitely an attractive person. She seemed to be there with her family—her dad, her older brother—but she was in every sense an adult. Whereas no matter how grown up and confident I felt outside, once I came home I was the baby again. No matter how many actual baby nieces and nephews I had running around, I was always the little kid.

"I think she might have set the whole situation up. I try not to feel paranoid about it, but—I wonder if they were only there that day because they were hoping to run into me. Or maybe she just saw a chance and took it.

"Anyway, she leaned over when we were both resting and told me she'd been watching me and she was impressed. I was a natural, she said, and she could tell I was throwing the game.

"'You could kick their asses,' she said. 'Why are you letting these worthless runts get ahead of you?'

"I tried to pretend I didn't know what she was talking about, but she just gave me this knowing smirk, like—" He let out a disgusted huff.

Stiles could imagine the scene. Blonde Kate Argent, six years younger but probably just as terrifying, noticing the athletic thirteen-year-old Derek in the next lane. Leaning in, turning on the charm, not taking 'no' for an answer.

"Did she—" he said, but he couldn't continue. "You were _thirteen,_ " he said.

"No, she never—she never touched me." Derek paused. "Not really."

"Okay." Stiles was fairly certain Kate's behavior towards Derek had been nothing but supremely creepy, but maybe she hadn't actually crossed that line.

"Anyway, I ran into her again at the library the next week. She said hi, then asked me if I was Peter Hale's nephew. When I said I was, she leaned in close and whispered that she and Peter were 'special friends,' so maybe she'd be seeing a lot more of me. A second later, she pretended to look nervous.

"'Don't tell anyone I told you that,' she said. 'Not even Peter. He'd be so angry if he knew I'd spoken to you!'

"I started seeing her everywhere. She was so friendly, and . . . I didn't have any friends. She told me how smart and mature I was for a thirteen-year-old. She told me I was a great listener, and she got me to tell her my hopes and dreams." Derek smiled bleakly.

"My Uncle Peter had begun acting strange. Disappearing at odd hours, not answering his cell. Taking showers in the middle of the day like he was trying to cover up his scent. He always had a convincing explanation for why he'd been gone, but then he was always an excellent liar. I knew he was sneaking out to meet with Kate, and I was so jealous.

"I was sure I was in love with her. I couldn't understand why my Uncle Peter wanted to keep their relationship a secret, like he was ashamed of her. He'd always been my favorite uncle, but we started fighting. They weren't really fights; I'd snipe at him, snap at him, and he'd narrow his eyes and flay me to the bone with his—his razor-sharp wit. Very one-sided.

"Laura was usually the one who brought me up short when I overstepped. The one I confided in when I was hurting. But she'd been busy lately, with friends and school and . . . being a popular seventeen-year-old. And she didn't have time for me.

"Peter took me aside finally. 'I don't mind our verbal sparring matches, but they'd be more fun if you had something to offer other than _anger,_ ' he said. 'Did I do something to piss you off? What gives?'

"'I can't respect you anymore,' I told him. It was something I thought a mature adult would say.

"'What? Why?'

"I told him I knew where he'd been sneaking off to, and it disgusted me. 'I can't believe you'd act this way,' I said. 'I looked up to you.'

"He went white, bone-white. Like I'd slashed his throat right open and let his blood spill out. 'Who else knows?' he said.

"'Just me,' I told him. 'And Kate, of course.'

"He put his hand over his mouth and—ran. I think he was crying."

Derek was crying, too, a silent wet line running down the side of his face. Stiles kissed the tears away as best he could.

"I went to Kate the next day," Derek said. "We had a place where we'd gotten in the habit of meeting. Sometimes she wasn't there, but that day she was. I asked her if Peter had talked to her. She said no, and asked why. I told her that I'd had it out with Peter, that I'd yelled at him for the way he treated her. That he'd seemed stricken, like what I'd said had cut him to the core.

"She laughed and told me they'd work it out.

"'I'm actually glad it's coming out into the open,' she said. 'All this secrecy has been exhausting.'

"Peter stopped sneaking out. He wouldn't look me in the eye, but he started participating in the family more. Playing with the kids. Making jokes.

"I asked Kate if they'd broken up. She seemed fairly normal, but there was a growing tension that I thought must be the product of the separation.

"'Yes,' she said, 'but I'm going to get him back. Don't blame yourself, Derek, Peter's just . . . a little high-strung. Hey,' she added, as if she were just thinking of something. 'You know, there's something you could do to help.'

"I didn't want to help her and Peter get back together, but she was smiling that special smile I never could say no to. So I said okay. Anything. Anything she wanted, I would do.

"So she gave me a box. 'It's a present for Peter,' she said. 'I want you to hide it in your house. Somewhere where Peter won't find it, where no one will see it. It's going to be a surprise. Like—like a scavenger hunt! With clues.'

"'Okay,' I said. 'I know a place no one will look.'

"'You are the best,' she said, and hugged me. And I went home and cried, because I knew that if she and Peter made up that maybe she'd be my aunt, but she'd never be mine. But I still hid the present in the basement, under a couple old suitcases, because I’d promised her I would.

"That night our house burned to the ground along with almost everyone in it. And when I came to outside—after Laura threw me through the window—Kate was there. Laughing."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, things are finally moving again.

Laura woke up in her old room, in Peter’s old bed, feeling heavy. The tiredness was growing, taking over. Turning into a Thing, a bulky, unwieldy weight she had to carry around all the time. Seriously all she ever wanted now was to sleep.

But she had too much to do. She was responsible for Derek again, which meant two things: he was a beta, her beta, so she had the beginnings of a pack; and he was another weight to carry. She’d failed her baby brother once; she would die before she failed him again.

Footsteps downstairs. The reek of gunmetal, gunpowder and wolfsbane.

Hunters.

And an undercurrent. That familiar, tantalizing perfume—not just hunters: Kate.

Laura felt the change try to take her over and she fought it. Like the exhaustion—maybe because of the exhaustion?—the alpha form had become a burden, a liability. So she stayed human, but allowed her senses drain out and down through the house. There were at least five of them, including Kate. They moved cautiously but confidently, which might mean they were experienced. But were they experienced in fighting against an alpha?

The right thing to do would be to jump out the window and take off. It would gain her nothing to fight them, and it might give the Argents an excuse to kill her, or to kill Derek. She remembered the nurse with the huge hole in her chest and realized that Derek was probably already on their list.

“I know you’re here.” Kate’s voice was normal, conversational. “Come on, Laura, we just want to talk.”

 

* * *

 

Sunday mornings were Stiles’s favorite. Weekdays he had school; Saturdays he and his dad did ‘family breakfast.’ But Sundays were lazy, do-whatever-you-want, get-up-whenever, maybe-don’t-get-up-at-all days.

So he was a little unhappy to be woken up at 8:30 am by an excited werewolf. And not the sexy kind of excited, either. (Although if Stiles was honest, everything Derek did was sexy. Even at the ungodly hour of 8:30 on a Sunday morning.)

Derek didn’t say anything, or shake him, or even talk. He just sat on the edge of the bed and _vibrated_ until Stiles opened his eyes.

“What? Huh?” Stiles said.

“Good morning!” Derek said. “I made breakfast.”

“Uh. Wuh?”

“Breakfast,” Derek repeated. “There’s French toast and scrambled eggs. It was supposed to be an omelet, but. Uh. So, scrambled eggs. And regular toast. And coffee.”

“It’s 8:30 in the morning,” Stiles said. “On Sunday.”

Derek looked at him.

“The one day of the week I get to stay in bed as long as I want,” Stiles said.

“Oh yeah,” Derek said, and bounced off the bed. “Right. That works, too.” He left.

Stiles shook his head and tried to go back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

'Talk,' huh. All right. They could 'talk.'

She felled the first of Kate’s hunters silently in the remains of the second-floor hallway, knocking her out with a single sharp (and gentle) blow to the neck. She left the woman for the others to stumble over.

The second one she drop-kicked over the railing. She heard his femur snap when he hit the ground. For a hunter he didn't seem to handle pain very well. His howls seemed almost animalistic.

Kate's voice told them not to be idiots, but the other two hunters opened fire, eyes wide, shooting in random directions. So simple to dodge, to blur silently past them—so fast they didn't even register that she was there. She circled around through the kitchen, darted through the dining room door.

She was warned by the sudden smell of ozone, but not in time: a net of electric cables wrapped around her, sending her muscles into bone-breaking spasms even while they bound her limbs together.

"An Alpha Trap," Kate said conversationally as she stepped into view. She was holding some kind of remote control loosely in one hand. "You probably haven't run into one before, they're kind of new. A bitch to transport, but they really come in handy on the odd occasion where you want to _talk_ with an alpha instead of kill it. Or before you kill it. Whatever." She smiled.

Laura fought the spasms enough to make her lips move. "Fuck. You." She took a hitching breath. _"Bitch."_

* * *

Stiles had almost dozed off when Derek was back.

“Also there’s bacon,” Derek said. “I don’t think it’s real, but—“ He was standing in the doorway with a tray full of food, holding a strip of turkey bacon up with a dubious look. “I put milk and sugar in your coffee. Hope that’s okay.”

He set the tray down next to Stiles. The food smelled heavenly, and despite himself Stiles's mouth started watering.

“Where did you even get the tray?” Stiles said.

“It’s a cookie sheet,” Derek said. “I put a cloth over it.”

“Okay, so . . . where’d you get a cookie sheet?”

“From one of the closets?”

Oh. Right. He had vaguely known his mom’s old baking stuff was still in the house somewhere, but he’d never gone looking for it. His dad had made it all disappear shortly after Stiles’s mom had died.

“Thanks,” Stiles said, taking a sip of coffee. It was perfect. “This is perfect,” he said. So was the French toast. And the scrambled eggs. “Jesus, where’d you learn to cook?”

“My dad,” Derek said, and looked down at his hands. “My mom was the alpha, so the pack didn’t let her do much in the way of chores. My dad did the cooking. Peter did the baking. Laura . . . well, Laura got out of chores as much as she could. But she fixed the cars when they broke down. And when I got old enough, my dad started letting me help out in the kitchen. Usually special breakfasts, like Mother’s Day. And Father’s Day, of course, since he was supposed to have that day off. Lupercalia. Christmas.” He shrugged. “So I’m pretty good at breakfast.”

“Dude, you are _fantastic_ at breakfast. I’m gonna have you cook next Saturday. This is better than Dad’s pancakes, and that is saying something.”

Derek’s smile was whole-hearted, a delighted, happy grin that made Stiles’s heart beat all funny, like it was trying to come out of his chest.

“Aren’t—“ Stiles’s voice was a croak. He cleared his throat. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I ate a couple hours ago,” Derek said. “Wanted to give you some time to sleep in. After last night.” He looked a little guilty.

“I didn’t mind,” Stiles said. “Last night, I mean. I was glad you—I was glad you trust me. Enough to tell me about it.”

“But I still woke you up in the middle of the night,” Derek said. “And kept you awake for another hour.”

“It was twenty minutes, tops,” Stiles said. “And I can spare twenty minutes of my sleep time to listen to someone I—someone I care about. To have an important conversation.” He rubbed his head awkwardly. “To be there for you.”

 

* * *

 

The 'Alpha Trap' seemed to respond to movement. There was a constant electric current burning through her, sapping her strength, but it was manageable as long as she held perfectly still.

Kate was saying something, but it wasn't important.

Laura took a breath and wrenched with all her strength, trying to slice through the cables with her claws while twisting her shoulders and yanking with her legs. The result was unbelievable—a wall of electricity that slammed into her, wiping her thoughts away, swatting her like a bug.

 

* * *

 

It could have been seconds, minutes or hours later that Laura came back to herself and opened her eyes.

"Now why can't you just be smart about this?" Kate said.

All of Laura's muscles throbbed, which, given her alpha-wolf healing rate, meant the damage must have been severe. She was sure she could survive multiple shocks like that one, but not more than, oh, one an hour. And of course there was the fact that she was completely helpless while she was unconscious. Vulnerable to having her throat slashed and her spine severed.

"What do you want," she choked out. She'd meant it to be a menacing growl, but her vocal cords weren't cooperating.

"I just had a couple questions," Kate said. "Relax, they're easy ones."

There was phlegm or blood in her throat. Laura hawked and spat.

"First thing: are you our rogue alpha?" Kate leaned in close. "We know you're _an_ alpha. The questions is, are you the alpha that killed Hendricks at the animal clinic? The alpha that broke into my bedroom and stole that wolfsbane bullet?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Laura said. So there actually was another alpha out there. Derek had mentioned something about the Argents' house . . .

"Oh, I think you do," Kate said. Her lips were now millimeters away from Laura's ear. "You forget that I've always been able to read you." Her finger stroked Laura's cheek. "Like a book."

Laura snarled and snapped at Kate, but the movement just ended in painful spasms as the trap activated again.

"Temper, temper," Kate said. She chuckled. "Oh, isn't this just like old times?" She cocked her head and smiled. "Remember all the _fun_ we had together?" She shrugged. "Well. I'll leave the first question for the moment. Second thing: How has your alpha shift been doing? You left Beacon Hills awful fast after that terrible fire. I always wondered if it was because you just couldn't master the alpha powers on your own. So tell me, now that you're back—have you noticed anything . . . off? Anything strange about the alpha shift?"

No one in Beacon Hills knew anything about her control issues. She'd kept ahold of herself as best she could through the funerals and then had fled to New York, to her mother's cousins outside of Utica. To ask Alpha Kurt for help. And she'd gained control, enough to learn the full-wolf alpha shift. Enough to feel comfortable saying goodbye to Kurt and his pack and moving to Brooklyn, where she made friends with the local packs but mostly kept to herself.

But when she'd come back to her hometown, it was suddenly like she'd never learned any control at all. The power that ran through her would boil up unexpectedly, or bottom out, vanishing completely, leaving her gasping and helpless and weak.

"How—" She snarled faintly. "How do you know about that."

Kate gave her a bright grin. "I couldn't say for sure, but—well. You remember that night, don't you? The present I gave you in the woods?"

"If you mean the _arrow_ you shot me with, then yes. I remember."

"The important part was the arrow _head_. A sharp silver gift, right to the heart. I thought it was symbolic."

"Poison?" Laura said, but that didn't make sense. She couldn't think of any kind of wolfsbane that would hide inside her like that. Disappearing for years only to manifest again.

"Hardly. You know, I've always felt a connection with silver," Kate said.

Laura tuned her out. Someone was outside, about a hundred yards away, approaching the house. Two young women, chatting about . . . clothes. Of course. The middle of the woods was an obvious place to meet to discuss fashion trends.

"Wait, that's my aunt's car," one of the said.

"What is going on, Allison?" the other one said. She sounded annoyed. "You never explained why we're even in the woods to begin with."

"Quiet. Get out of sight."

"So let's go back to my first question," Kate was saying. "Are you the rogue alpha?"

"What?" Laura said, forcing a laugh. "Are you high? Like, right now. Did you toke up before you came over? Smoke a bowl with your buddies before dropping in?" She snorted. "I'm not a rogue of any kind. I'm a Hale, and this is Hale land. If anyone's a rogue, it's you, Kate Argent."

A frightened face appeared at one of the windows. A pretty, dark-haired young woman whose eyes widened when she saw Kate—and whose jaw dropped wide open when she spotted Laura, trussed up in cables on the floor. Laura pretended not to notice. It wasn't like there was any way the girl could help besides calling 911, and she didn't want to get any more innocent people involved.

"No, I'm not high, as it happens," Kate said. "But I'm starting to wonder if you are. Let's see if we can cut through the fog, shall we?" She pressed a button on the device in her hand and Laura groaned and bucked as another hard jolt of current cracked through her.

Outside in the woods there were an abrupt, sharp concussion.

"What the hell?" Kate said.


	19. Chapter 19

Kate walked to the kitchen doorway. "Hey, Smith!"

No one answered, if you didn't count a moan from the guy with the broken femur.

"McClellan?" She shook her head. "What, are all of you napping or something?" She looked at Laura and smiled. "Stay," she said, accompanying the word with a short jolt of electricity.

Laura stayed, and listened.

Someone had come more or less silently up to the house and was waiting by the back door. The two hunters who were still mobile had been drawn outside by the explosion, and were now tromping around outside shouting at each other. Kate pumped a shotgun— _chck-chckk_ —before stepping into the living room. The floor creaked vaguely as she circled back around to where Laura was lying.

Kate did not look happy. Her head was cocked and Laura could tell she was listening as hard as she could, but the person outside the back door was being very, very quiet and even if Kate was a homicidal monster she was still human and couldn't hear a heartbeat.

Another sharp explosion. North-east of the house this time instead of east.

"Shit," Kate said, and slipped out through the front door, shotgun ready.

Someone eased the back door open and stepped into the kitchen. Their heartbeat was hard and loud. A few uneasy steps brought them to the kitchen door.

Laura had been expecting the dark-haired young woman (Allison?) but it was an exquisitely made-up strawberry blonde instead. She was wearing white knitted gloves, and black sweater and a short floral-print skirt. And high heels.

"Cute," Laura said.

This earned her a raised eyebrow. "Who are you?" the young woman said.

Laura considered her options. She didn't have many. "Laura Hale. And you?"

A rueful smirk. "I don't think so."

"Okay. Fair enough." Laura wasn't sure what this situation looked like, but she was surprised this girl had even agreed/decided to get involved this much.

"We don't have much time," the young woman said. "My friend can only keep them occupied for a little while longer. So. You're Laura Hale. Of the Hale family."

"The mostly late Hale family, yes," Laura said.

"And why are you tied up?"

"I believe the idea was to torture information out of me and then kill me."

"Mmmm. That was my impression as well." The girl was tapping a perfectly manicured finger on her lips. "Do you know the woman who was in here just now?"

"Kate? Yeah, I know her, but we aren't, ah, we aren't friends."

"Well this looks exceptionally shady, so I guess I'll let you go." The young woman produced a set of wire cutters from somewhere. She paused. "I have a Taser, so don't try anything."

"I won't," Laura said.

The young woman bent over her.

"Be careful," Laura said. "They're electrified."

"Of course," the girl said. She frowned at the tangle for a second. "But this one isn't." She snipped one cable and the whole net fell away, crackling morosely.

Outside, a hundred or so yards away from the house, Kate was shouting. "What the _fuck,_ Allison, I thought I was under attack!"

"Kate, I'm so sorry," the other young woman's voice said. "I didn't know anyone else was out here. I know I shouldn't have, but I found these flash-bang arrows in the—in the garage and . . . I was curious. You won't tell Dad, will you? Please say you won't."

"Of course I won't tell Chris." Laura knew Kate had her playful smile on and she felt nauseated. "And I can see you and I will need to have that talk I was planning sooner rather than later. In fact . . . come with me to the house—there's something I want to show you. It might answer a lot of your questions about the family."

"They're coming back," Laura said, working her shoulders to get the feeling back.

"I don't hear anything," the young woman said.

"Trust me," Laura said.

Her rescuer looked skeptical, but she held out a hand for Laura to take. "I'm Lydia," the young woman said. "And you're going to tell me everything."

 

* * *

 

"Quickly," the woman who said she was Laura Hale said and darted silently out the back door. Lydia took a moment to take her stun gun out of her purse—she considered arming herself with pepper spray as well, but decided one weapon was enough. The woman looked fit, but not particularly dangerous.

As soon as she stepped outside, Laura was there, pressing her up against the wall of the house and motioning for silence. Lydia squirmed slightly, but Laura didn't even seem to notice. Maybe she was stronger than she looked. Shit.

 _Let me go,_ Lydia mouthed.

 _Not yet,_ was the silent reply. Laura was staring off into the distance, seemingly listening to something. Which was ridiculous because Lydia couldn't hear—oh, wait, no, there were voices. She concentrated. One of them sounded like Allison, but she couldn't tell what they were saying.

Laura leaned in even closer. "Okay, they're all inside," she muttered.

Lydia could feel Laura's breath on her ear. She nodded.

"We'll have to leave my car," Laura said. She sounded pissed. "And run for it."

"Okay," Lydia whispered.

"Ready?"

Lydia nodded.

" ** _Now,_** " Laura said, and they were running.

Or rather Laura was running and Lydia was desperately trying to race-walk as fast as she could without toppling over.

"Jesus Christ, really?" Laura said, turning around. She picked Lydia up without even an "oof" and took off again. "This is why you shouldn't wear high heels in the _woods._ " She didn't even sound slightly winded.

There were shouts behind them, but Laura didn't look back, just put her head down and ran even faster, dodging through the trees and leaping over streams and boulders like a high-jumping hurdler.

"This isn't real," Lydia thought. "How strange. I've never dreamed about Laura Hale before."

 

* * *

 

"Where should I take you?" Laura asked when they were out of the woods.

"Um. What?" Lydia had been zoning out, waiting for the dream to end.

Laura set her down brusquely. "Unless you want to walk back to town in those shoes, I guess I'm carrying you. So. Where are we headed?"

So maybe this wasn't a dream after all. Which meant there were even more questions Lydia wanted to ask Laura. "Carry me? Don't be ridiculous. I'll call my boyfriend to come pick me up. That's what he's for." Lydia got out her phone and dialed. "Where are you going, by the way?"

"I dunno," Laura said with a shrug.

"So you just . . . hang out in the woods." Still no answer from Jackson. She looked Laura up and down. "In a gigantic Looney Tunes t-shirt and nothing else."

Laura laughed. "They woke me up," as if that explained anything. "No, I'm mostly busy in town. But I have been sleeping in my family's derelict old house. Except I probably won't be able to do that anymore."

"So you don't have anywhere to stay."

Jackson's voicemail kicked in. "Hey, it's Jackson. I probably don't want to talk to you, so fuck off."

"Jackson, this is your girlfriend. I'm standing on the side of the road out by the Preserve, and I could _really_ use a ride right now. If you don't call me back in two minutes you can forget about me touching your penis ever again. Bye." She looked back at Laura. "Jackson can give you a ride."

"Is Jackson even coming? What if he doesn't get your voicemail until—"

Lydia waved this away. "Jackson's just still pissed after the fight we had last night. I guarantee you he's listening to the voicemail right now." He'd better be, if he knew what was good for him.

Laura shrugged. "All right. I would accept a ride to a motel, if someone offered."

"Do you have a credit card hidden somewhere in that tent you're wearing?" She let her gaze flicker to the other woman's chest and raised an eyebrow.

"Shit," Laura said.

"We'll, I already said you're telling me everything," Lydia said. "And that'll be easier of you're close at hand."

"What?"

"So that's settled," Lydia said. Her phone rang. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" Jackson did not sound happy to be roped into being her chauffeur, but then he never liked doing things for other people unless there was a direct—and obvious—payback of some kind.

"On Route 3. Uh—" She looked at Laura.

"Five miles west of the Hale house," Laura said.

"Five miles?" That wasn't possible.

"Five miles," Laura said again.

"We're on the 3, five miles west of the Hale house," Lydia said.

There was a pause. "'We'?" Jackson said.

"Yes. I have a friend with me."

"I hope they're tiny."

"We'll make it work. Get your ass in your Porsche, get your Porsche in gear, and come out and pick us up."

"Fuck you," Jackson grumbled and hung up.

 

* * *

 

When Laura saw what Lydia's boyfriend was driving, her jaw dropped. "You have got to be kidding."

"Yeah," Lydia said in a bored tone. "Don't compliment it where he can hear you. It gets really boring, really fast." She opened the passenger door, leaned the seat back forward, and motioned for Laura to get in.

"You have _got_ to be kidding." The back seat looked like it could maybe hold two bags of groceries. _Maybe._ "Why don't you take the back?"

Lydia raised an incredulous eyebrow and did not respond.

The gorgeous douchebro in the driver's seat leaned over. "Get in the damn car or I'm leaving you both."

Laura wedged herself in, thinking longingly of the relative spaciousness of her own back seat. Why had she agreed to a ride again? She could have used a run this morning. Although a baggy night shirt and panties were not her usual running gear.

Jackson's jaw was tense and he wasn't talking, but Lydia looked completely unconcerned. She stripped off her gloves before fixing her makeup in the visor mirror and fluffing her hair.

"You're taking us to my place," Lydia said.

"What?" Laura said.

"I told you I have questions," Lydia said. "And this seems the simplest arrangement, especially since you don't have any way of paying for a hotel. We have tons of room. My mom might not even notice."

"Who is this, and how do you know her?" Jackson said.

"I'm Laura Hale," Laura said, holding her hand out over the seat for him to shake.

He ignored it. "Laura Hale. As in—"

"The Hale family. Yes."

"And you know Lydia . . . how?"

"Our mothers knew each other," Lydia said calmly.

"Did they have _tea_ together?" Jackson sneered. "Did they play _bridge?_ "

"Knowing my mother, it was bourbon," Laura said. "And maybe gin rummy."

Jackson didn't seem to have a reply to this, so Laura put her head back and thought of her mother. Strong and deadly, a brilliant tactician, with a secret warm side that only came out with she was with her family. Laura had been closer to her father—all the children were closer to their father, it seemed—but it was her mother she missed most now. Her mother who had been teaching her to be an alpha. To be powerful. To be effective and daring and intelligent. It still didn't seem possible that she was gone.

"I don't understand any of this," Jackson muttered in the front seat. "Why were you out in the woods at all?"

Lydia shrugged. "Allison was showing me her archery."

"Archery. Uh-huh. And where is Allison?"

"We ran into her aunt," Lydia said vaguely.

"So Allison what, ditched you? Out in the middle of nowhere?"

"I told her not to worry about us. That I would call you."

Jackson was grinding his teeth so hard it sounded like they might break. "I cannot believe you," he snarled. "It is 9:30 on a Sunday morning. What kind of _crazy b—_ "

Lydia's head swiveled, her expression was icy. Jackson cut off and swallowed.

"That's better," Lydia said. "Laura, are you comfortable?"

"No."

"Excellent," Lydia said. "Isn't the weather beautiful?"

A few minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of a very nice house. Not palatial, but . . . nice. Lydia leaned over and gave Jackson a peck on the cheek.

"Thanks so much," she said. "I'll come over later, okay? To thank you properly." She patted him on the thigh and finally climbed out.

Laura squeezed out into the open air gratefully, feeling her tortured muscles unknot and stretch. She groaned and vowed never to subject herself to that experience again.

Lydia led her inside and up the stairs.

"You'll sleep here," Lydia said, pushing open a door.

It was a guest room, but it was probably the most luxurious one Laura had ever seen. Definitely a step up from a dirty mattress in a burned-down house.

"Thanks," she said.

"There's always food in the kitchen, so help yourself. And the gym room is down the hall, if you want to work out."

A gym room? Okay.

"Okay," she said.

Lydia turned and folded her arms. "So. Do you want to answer my questions up here, or down in the kitchen?"

Laura's stomach growled. "Kitchen?"

"Perfect. Come on." She spun on her heel and led the way downstairs.

 

* * *

 

Lydia waited until her guest had a plateful of Pop-Tarts and toast before starting the interrogation.

"First question. You ran five miles without breaking a sweat. While carrying me. How did you do that?"

Laura shrugged. "I'm in good shape, I guess."

"You were _sprinting._ Over uneven ground. And I'm little, but I'm no lightweight."

"You're tiny," Laura said. "And I'm a good runner."

Lydia snorted. "All right. Second question. You could hear Kate and Allison's conversation, couldn't you? What were they talking about?"

A shrug. "Clothes?"

Lydia felt her eyes narrow. "No, that's what Allison and I were talking about. Before we stumbled over you. You could hear us then, couldn't you? How good is your hearing?"

"It's a medical condition," Laura said.

"Right. A 'medical condition.' Okay, moving on. Why does Kate Argent want you dead? What information was she trying to force out of you? And who started the fire that burned down your house and killed your family?"

Laura's mouth was open, but no words came out.

Lydia cocked her head to the side. "Also, I couldn't help but notice how heavy-duty that electro-torture rig was. Those cables? And the bank of batteries attached to them? For most people, a car battery and a pair of handcuffs would have been sufficient, but Kate didn't seem to think that was enough for you. And she was right, wasn't she?"

Laura made as if to stand (to attack? run away?), but Lydia held up the clear flask she'd gotten out from under the sink.

"I wouldn't move if I were you," she said. She swirled the amber liquid in the flask gently. "I stirred this up myself a couple months ago. I was bored and had the afternoon to myself—you know how it goes." She tapped the glass with a fingernail. "Ignites on impact. It might burn down the house, but it would definitely kill you."

"What do you want?" Laura said.

Lydia smiled. "Answers. And I intend to get them."

 

* * *

 

Fantastic. She'd traded one psychopathic captor for another. Laura tried to look bland and relaxed while calculating how fast she would have to move to either disarm the young woman or avoid her throw.

The front door banged open, and a second later, the dark-haired girl—Allison—stumbled in. "Oh my god," she said, panting. "Oh. My god."

"Are you okay?" Lydia asked, casually setting the incendiary flask down on the counter.

"Yeah, I told Kate I had snuck out into the woods on my own to try out those arrows I found, and I was soooo sorry, etc., and that might have been okay, but then she wanted to take me to the Hale house to show me something—I think she meant you," she said to Laura. "—and when we got there and the wires were cut and you were gone she _flipped._ _The fuck. Out._ Accused me of being 'in league' with 'them' against my own family. I thought she was going to shoot me." Allison swallowed. "So I just acted scared and confused and told her I had no idea what she was talking about, and finally she let me go." Allison grabbed a Pop-Tart and shoved it in her mouth.

Lydia gave her a hug. "Well, I sneaked into the house and freed the woman your aunt was torturing. Who turned out to be . . . I don't know what, we didn't quite make it to that part. But maybe not human."

Allison looked at Laura, eyebrows shooting up. "Not human?"

Lydia ticked her suspicions off on her fingers. "Superhuman hearing. Superhuman strength and probably superhuman speed. Superhuman resistance to electrocution. Also her eyes keep flashing red."

 _Shit,_ Laura groaned internally. And here she'd thought she was being so careful, keeping the change in check.

"Where did you get any of those things from?" Allison said.

"Trust me," Lydia said. "She carried me _five miles_ through the forest. At cheetah speed."

"'Superhuman' doesn't necessarily mean _not_ human," Allison said. "Maybe she's human, but . . . also really strong and fast." She looked at Laura. "Are you?" she asked. "Human?"

"My dad was," Laura said. She sighed. "But no, I'm not. Not really."

"Well, what are you?" Lydia asked.

So Laura showed them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise we'll meet back up with the boys in the next update.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omigod it's another update! This one is kind of long and talky, so be warned.

After a long couple of seconds, Laura forced herself to change back, gritting her jaw until her fangs receded and were just teeth, until her brow unknit and her sideburns were gone. She tried not to pay attention to the arrow Allison had trained on her heart, or the glass flask Lydia was gripping in a trembling hand.

"So you're, what?" Lydia said in a voice of studied calm. "A werewolf?"

"Yes," Laura said simply.

Allison's eyes were wide, and Laura was afraid what would happen if the young woman's fingers slipped on the bowstring. The arrow wouldn't kill her, but with her current lack of control she could imagine things getting ugly—and bloody—very quickly.

"I should probably go," Laura said, standing up slowly, hands carefully raised. She looked at Lydia. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Do you suddenly have somewhere else to stay?" Lydia said. She set the Molotov cocktail back on the counter and smiled sweetly. "Or did you remember you have a wad of bills secreted in your panties?"

"No, but—"

"But nothing," Lydia said firmly. "We already agreed you were staying here for the time being."

"You can't hold me," Laura said. She was disturbed at how petulant it sounded.

"'Hold you'? Please. You'll stay because you know this is the best solution, not because I coerced you."

"I could stay with the Stilinskis," Laura said. "I need to talk to my brother anyway."

Allison's mouth dropped open, and she let the bow fall to her side. "The _sheriff's_ house? So _that's_ what Scott meant. Your brother's a werewolf too, right?"

". . . yes?"

"And he's staying over at Stiles's right now? Are they dating? Because Scott has been hinting around all weekend about something that had to do with Stiles, something he wanted to talk about but couldn't, only I wasn't listening very closely because when he goes cryptic like that he's completely incomprehensible, and there’s no point in trying, you know? And then Stiles showed up at our house and tried to break into the guest bedroom, I guess, and Kate and my parents were acting all kinds of weird and interrogating him and talking about a _mountain lion,_ and then later on Scott started dropping these hints about Kate—"

"Who is Scott?" Laura said. "What mountain lion? And I'm not sure I'd call what's going on with Derek and Stiles 'dating,' but you could say they're . . . together."

"As fascinating as this is," Lydia said in a bored voice, "you must see that you can't stay at the sheriff's house. Especially if they already have a guest. It's just bad manners."

"I should call Scott," Allison said. "I'm going to force him to tell us what he knows. He's a dear, but he has _no_ common sense, especially when it comes to secrets. Or his best friend having a gay affair with a werewolf." She pulled out her phone and dialed. "Hey, sweetie!"

It sounded like a young man on the other end. "Hey, Sugar Nips!"

Laura grinned wickedly and mouthed "Sugar Nips" in Allison's direction. The young woman pretended to ignore this, but her cheeks went pink anyway. Lydia sighed and began examining her immaculate fingernails.

"So I was wondering what you have going on right now," Allison said. "I'm a little worried about Stiles—"

"Oh, wait," the young man interrupted. "I just had the best idea. What if you called me 'Candy Crack'? Wouldn't that be perfect? Because you like to lick—"

"SCOTT." Allison's face was bright red now. "I'm with friends right now, and at least one of them can hear what you're saying."

That was it. Laura was going to die from laughing. She'd survived multiple lightning-strength electric shocks that morning, but what was going to actually kill her was a sixteen-year-old boy saying the words "candy crack."

"You have me on speaker?" Scott sounded panicked.

"No, she can just . . . hear really well. She says she's Derek's sister."

There was silence on the other end.

"I'm guessing you know who that is. She also says her brother is staying with Stiles. Is that true?"

". . . yes," came the reluctant answer. "But—"

"I ran into her up at the old Hale place. You know, the burned-down house in the woods? She was in the middle of being tortured by my aunt Kate."

More silence.

"We rescued her, of course, and brought her to Lydia's. Where she announced she was a _werewolf_ and transformed in front of us. I nearly shot her full of arrows!"

Lydia spoke up. "Technically, she transformed first, and then admitted she was a werewolf."

Allison angrily waved away this clarification.

"Uh . . ." Scott was saying.

"So you did know about this. Scott, why wouldn't you tell me something this important?"

Scott sighed. "It wasn't my secret to tell you, Allison. I'm sorry. Also, I didn't—I was afraid you'd get involved, and maybe get hurt."

"Scott. When will you learn that I am more than capable of defending my own self? You've gotta stop treating me like I'm breakable. Or a child. It's not flattering, and it's not cool."

"I know. I know, Allison. I just worry. If anything happened to you—"

"You listen to me, Scott. If anyone tries to do anything to me, or to you, or to anyone I care about, I'll riddle them with arrows. And cut their throats. And then set them on fire. Believe me on this. That goes for werewolves, Mafia dons, or even my Aunt Kate."

"But you love Kate."

Allison's shoulders slumped. "I thought she was someone different. Watching her laugh while she tried to electrocute another person kind of changed my perspective on her."

"I'm sorry," Scott whispered.

"Yeah, me too. Especially since I'm still not sure the person I rescued was worth losing my relationship with my aunt." Allison sent a challenging look in Laura's direction.

"I've never met Laura. But if she's anything like her brother—well, Stiles is willing to kill for Derek, and I trust Stiles."

"We need to get together," Allison said. "You, me, Stiles, Derek, Lydia and Laura. We need to talk about what's happening, figure out what to do."

"Wait," Laura said. "I'm not sure I'm up for some kind of teenager-mediated strategy session."

"Hush," Lydia said. "From what I've seen, you could use a little help in the strategy department. And trust me—" She leaned over the counter with a wide smile. "—I am _very_ strategic."

 

* * *

 

Breakfast was long over. Derek was napping—mostly naked—on top of the comforter, and Stiles  was deciding whether to join him or wake him when the phone rang.

"Hey, Scott. What's up?"

"So I'm not sure quite how to say this . . ."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Just say it. Is this about me and Derek? Because—"

"Kind of," Scott said. "But also kind of not?"

Derek was stirring, so Stiles lowered his voice. "Okay. So . . . spill."

"Allison and Laura were out in the woods this morning. I'm not completely sure why. And they were walking by the old Hale place—"

"Shit."

"No, wait. I'm not even there yet. So at the old Hale place they ran into Allison's Aunt Kate—"

" _Shit_."

"Just listen, Stiles! They found Kate torturing a woman named Laura Hale."

Derek was wide awake now, and at this sentence his Wolf-Man face came out and his eyes shone blue. "Kate?" he growled. " _Laura?_ "

"They got her out. She's at Lydia's. And they know she's a werewolf."

Stiles's mouth fell open. "Uh. Shit?"

"Uh-huh. So they want to meet up at Lydia's. Like, now."

"Are you at home?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Derek and I'll be by in a second."

 

* * *

 

Scott was nowhere to be seen when they pulled up in front of the McCall house.

"Wait here," Stiles said. "He's probably still up in his room, deciding what to wear."

Derek looked at him imploringly. Stiles could tell he was still on edge.

"I don't want to wait," Derek said. "I don't want to be alone."

Stiles squeezed his hand. "Okay. Sure. It'll just take a second."

The front door was locked, so Stiles let them in with the key he'd made.

"Scott?" Mrs. McCall was coming down the stairs in her scrubs. She saw who it was and her eyebrows climbed into her hair. "No. Stiles! And . . . you have a key."

"Uh." Stiles looked at the key in his hand. "I couldn't sleep at night, worrying that Scott would lock himself out, so . . ."

"Right. Very thoughtful of you. I know _I'm_ going to sleep much better at night, knowing you have a key to my house."

"That's great," Stiles said, smiling. "Good to see you, Mrs. McCall."

She shook her head and smiled at Derek. "Good to see you again, Derek." She stepped past them and went out the front door.

Scott was in his bedroom, the contents of his closet scattered all over the bed.

"Almost ready," he said. "Just one more minute."

"Dude," Stiles said. "Allison isn't going to break up with you if you choose the wrong shirt."

"I know . . ."

"She'll break up with you because you're a dumbass who takes too long to get ready for things."

"Ha ha ha." He finally chose a shirt and put it on.

"Okay, great," Stiles said. "Derek grab his arm. Let's get out of here before he changes his mind AGAIN."

 

* * *

 

Stiles had never been inside Lydia's house before. Outside, parked down the street, watching for her to come home? Maybe a couple times. But inside, never. Not surprising, since she refused to give him the time of day even when they were eating lunch at the same table.

Allison opened the door before he even had time to ring the bell. She glanced down to where Derek had Stiles's hand in a death grip, but she didn't say anything. She waved them in, barely waiting until they were past her to jump on Scott.

Stiles had dreamed of this moment a thousand different ways, and yet somehow none of his fantasies had him walking into Lydia's house holding his boyfriend's hand. (Well, there was the one where he, Danny and Lydia had a threesome, but he didn't think that counted.) Which reminded him that he'd never asked Derek whether he was okay with them being boyfriends. The one relationship talk they'd had had been kinda depressing, so he hadn't dared to bring it up.

Lydia's house was a palace compared with Casa Stilinski, that was for sure. He didn't know anything about décor or design, but he had an idea that a professional's hand had been involved in the decoration of the rooms—possibly a number of professionals, in an ongoing capacity. And since he couldn't imagine Lydia or her mother scrubbing anything, he thought a professional was probably called in for housework-type duties as well. High ceilings, expensive furnishings, lovely accents, an open floor plan—it put his childhood home to shame in every respect except one: his mother had never lived here.

Lydia and Laura were in the kitchen, sitting side by side at the counter on a couple of bar stools, talking in low voices. Derek immediately dropped Stiles's hand and grabbed Laura in a hug.

"I'm okay, Derek. Everything's fine," Laura said.

"They said Kate had you. That she _tortured_ you."

Laura laughed. "I'm sure she thought it was torture, but I've had much worse."

He sighed. "You know I can tell when you lie. It doesn't make me feel better."

She looked fierce. "Maybe I'm trying to make myself feel better, baby bro. Ever think of that?"

"Does it help?" he asked.

She chewed her lip for a second. "Not really," she said, shrugging. "But it's an attempt."

"So, Kate Argent," Lydia said, looking around. "We have to do something about her. People can't be allowed to kidnap and torture in Beacon Hills—this is my town, and _I won't allow it._ "

"There's also the matter of the rogue alpha," Laura said. "It's killing people; the Argents will never give up until they bring it down."

"I vote we tell the sheriff," Lydia said. Stiles opened his mouth and she raised a swift, forbidding hand. "I'm not done! We come up with a reason for the sheriff to investigate the Argents that doesn't involve werewolves. The illegality of kidnap and torture doesn't hinge on the victim not being a werewolf, after all."

Scott raised his hand. Lydia raised an eyebrow and stared at him.

"What?" she demanded after a second. "Come on, this isn't a classroom."

Scott swallowed. "Well, I don't understand why we don't just tell the sheriff everything. Think about it, Stiles! If your dad keeps investigating these murders and attacks, he's bound to run into danger at some point. It would be easier for him to stay safe—to keep his department safe—if he knew what he was really up against."

"I still don't like it," Stiles said. "He would be a hell of a lot safer staying at home, and not investigating this stuff at all."

"Can you think of a way for us to make that happen?" Lydia said.

"Short of grievous bodily harm leading to extended bed rest or some kind of coma? No," Stiles said.

"Well then. Who votes we tell the sheriff _something?_ "

Reluctantly, everyone agreed.

"Great, that's unanimous. Now, who votes we tell the sheriff about werewolves?"

Scott was the only one who raised his hand. "Come on, guys," he said.

"We don't tell humans about us unless they are tied to the pack," Laura said. "It's bad enough that you four know. You can't tell anyone else."

"Well, we four and maybe one more," Scott said.

"What? Who?" Laura's eyes flashed red.

"Dr. Deaton. My boss. The veterinarian?"

Laura considered. "I've met Deaton. He seemed trustworthy, but . . . how did he find out?"

Derek coughed and looked embarrassed.

Stiles spoke up. "Uh, when Derek was at the animal clinic, he transformed. He was alone in the exam room with me, but Scott saw it through the window. Deaton probably did, too."

"And he didn't say anything?"

"No."

"I wonder what his game is," Laura said. "I may need to pay him another visit."

Lydia cleared her throat. "So, everyone _against_ telling the sheriff about werewolves?"

Everyone except Scott and Stiles raised their hands. All eyes went to Stiles.

"What?" he said. "I just . . . the sheriff is my _dad._ I can think of ways both telling him _and_ not telling him could lead to his horrible demise, so . . . I'm not voting on this one. Besides, the nays would carry it either way."

"What about Dr. Deaton?" Scott said. "I trust him. I think he could help."

"No," Laura said.

"Not a chance," Lydia said at the same time.

"I don't think that's a good idea, sweetie," Allison said. "I mean, what do you really know about him?"

Scott set his jaw pugnaciously. "I know he trusts me, and relies on me. I know he gives excellent advice, and doesn't pry or spill secrets. And I've seen him with animals—I can't believe he would ever hurt anyone except if he were trying to defend someone else. He's _good,_ you guys. He might be the best person I know."

"I liked him," Derek said suddenly. "He was kind and thorough and competent, and also very calming. I think I would trust him."

"Everyone who thinks we should involve Dr. Deaton?" Lydia said.

Scott, Derek and Stiles raised their hands.

"Those against?"

Lydia, Allison and Laura raised their hands. Scott gave Allison a hurt look, and she shrugged shamefacedly.

"How about this," Laura said. "I vote no on telling Deaton until— _until,_ " she repeated. "—I've had a chance to size him up again. And then I could conceivably change my mind."

"All right," Lydia said. "But I want to meet him, too."

That met with more or less unanimous approval, albeit of a very reluctant variety in Scott's case.

"Great," Lydia said. "Pack meeting adjourned. Who wants cake?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm regretting ever making the sheriff a POV character because I don't know anything about police procedure, crime scene investigation, forensics—any of it. Forgive all the errors I have undoubtedly made.

Laura's eyes glowed red. "'Pack meeting'?" she snarled. "You aren't part of any pack, human girl."

She wasn't the only one who was pissed; Stiles could hear Derek growling slightly.

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "I'm part of this," she said, gesturing at the group gathered in the kitchen. She looked at Laura and sighed. "What are you so worked up about? 'Pack' is an ordinary English word that—"

Laura wrapped a clawed hand around Lydia's arm. "If you had any idea what pack means to us—how fundamental, how _central_ it is to our lives and our culture, you would never throw the word around so lightly."

"Let go of me." Lydia looked annoyed.

Laura's snarl continued.

Lydia sighed and rolled her eyes. " _Fine_. We'll come up with a different name for this crew. Happy?"

Laura gave Lydia a gentle shake and stepped back. She looked around. "That goes for all of you. The only other person in my pack is Derek. And Peter, if he ever wakes up."

"Stiles is pack," Derek said.

Laura sighed. "Derek—"

Derek's jaw set stubbornly. "You may be my alpha, but you can't dictate this. I knew Stile was pack even before I remembered I was human."

"We'll talk about this later," she said.

Lydia cleared her throat smiled a brilliant hostess smile. "So . . . cake?"

The cake was an airy confection with whipped cream and strawberries from the French bakery downtown. Stiles had two slices. Derek didn't have any.

"Not hungry?" Stiles asked.

"No, I just—" Derek shrugged. "I don't like sweets."

Stiles stared. "Is that some kind of . . . werewolf thing?"

"No," Laura said from his other side. "It's a Derek thing." She grinned and shoved a huge forkful of cake in her mouth.

"More sugar for me, I guess," Stiles said.

A low growl from Derek.

"Dude," Stiles said. "It's really okay. I can't say I understand your sweet-hating lifestyle, but I'll support it."

Derek blushed. "That was my stomach," he said. "I guess it's lunchtime?"

"Oh. Yeah, lunch." He looked around. "Uh, we're going to head out. Don't tell my dad anything without talking to me!"

He gave Scott and Lydia meaningful looks. Scott looked guilty and Lydia looked disdainful.

"I mean it!" Stiles said. "You coming, Scott?"

Scott blushed. "Uh, I was actually going to . . . hang."

Lydia gave him an incredulous look.

"With Allison," he amended quickly. "I was planning on hanging out with Allison."

He and Allison traded a sickeningly sweet look that made Stiles want to gag.

"Fantastic," Stiles said. "You do that. Come on, Derek. Let's get you fed."

 

* * *

 

When the others were all gone, Laura and Lydia were left alone together in the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Lydia said. She seemed hesitant, which was a bizarre look on her. "It was a joke. Werewolves, wolves, wolf pack, pack. I didn't think about what it would mean to you guys."

"Apology accepted," Laura said. She took another bite of cake. It really was good.

"I had a question."

"Okay."

"You said earlier that humans weren't supposed to know about . . . you . . . unless they were tied to the pack."

"That's right."

"And you made it very clear that we are not tied to your pack."

"There are different kinds of ties." Laura sighed. "You aren't _part_ of the pack, but if we can build some sort of mutual trust, we would consider you . . . affiliated."

Lydia nodded. "So why did you tell us the truth? Allison and me. You could have lied. Or just refused to talk—you're smart, and strong, and no matter how potent my firebomb is, I'm not a fighter. You are. You could probably have disarmed me and not broken a sweat. But you not only admitted to being a werewolf, you actually transformed for us."

Laura had no intention of telling Lydia the real reason, so she shrugged instead. "It seemed like the best choice at the time." Not a complete lie. Whatever pull she felt from Lydia had made revealing her secret seem like the obvious thing to do—like her heart knew the young woman could be trusted, no matter how unreliable and self-centered she seemed on the outside.

"I see." Lydia flashed her a tight smile. She had her phone out and was texting. "Well, I've got to go visit my boyfriend. Jackson can be an asshole, but I've got him well trained. Wouldn't want the conditioning to wear off because I was lazy."

Laura's phone jangled.

 _Hello there,_ the screen read.

The number was different than before, but it had to be the same person.

"Ugh, not again," she said.

"What?" Lydia looked over her shoulder and read the text. "Who's that from?"

"Just some creep," Laura said. "They keep texting me and asking to meet up."

"'Meet up'?"

"They claim to have information about the fire," Laura said.

Lydia looked thoughtful. "Do you want to find out who they are?"

"I guess. But the last number they used was unlisted, so I'm guessing this one will be, too."

"You need Danny," Lydia said.

"Danny?"

"Jackson's friend. He can hack anything. He could trace the texts for you, with the right . . . persuasion."

Laura let her claws come out and held up a hand. "I'm pretty good at persuading people," she said.

Lydia laughed. "I meant we should get Jackson to talk to him—he can convince Danny to do anything. Which makes it even more important that I'm on Jackson's good side." She paused. "Did you want to visit the vet tomorrow night? Check him out, see if it's worth our while to ask him for help?"

"Sure," Laura said. "I don't really have plans."

"Great. Let's exchange numbers." She smiled.

"Uh. Of course," Laura said. "Um, about tonight—"

"We already discussed this. You're staying here."

"Tonight's the full moon," Laura said. "It's probably better that I spend tonight . . . outdoors. By myself."

Lydia smirked. "Are you vulnerable to silver as well? Or wolfsbane?"

"All I know is . . . my control has been shaky lately," Laura said. "And even an experienced werewolf can be dangerous when the moon is full."

"Fine." Lydia did not sound happy.

"I'll be back early tomorrow morning," Laura promised.

A horn honked outside. "That'll be Jackson," Lydia said. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

Laura hadn't been alone in the house even for a minute when her phone buzzed again. It was from Lydia this time.

 _Looking forward to our date tomorrow night,_ it said. _I expect you to be showered and presentable. Toodles!_

Laura rolled her eyes. The clothes Allison had loaned her were a little tight, and a little too long in the legs and arms, but they were cute. Not as cute as Lydia's outfits—seriously, how did she manage to stay that perfect after not one, but _two_ trips through the woods?—but Laura thought she looked fine.

Besides, the visit to the vet was business. Not pleasure. So what she looked like didn't matter.

Did it?

Laura growled and left the house at a lope, heading for the woods.

 

* * *

 

They decided to have lunch at the Stilinski house, since Stiles was pretty much broke and Derek hadn't touched money in at least six years.

"You're sister's kinda scary," Stiles said. He was picking apart his sandwich and eating each ingredient separately—the only reasonable way to eat sandwiches, in his opinion.

Derek shrugged. "She's an alpha," he said. "They're always a little frightening. In any case, I think Lydia is scarier."

"Good point. Which one of them do you think would win in a fight?"

"A fair fight? Laura. But Lydia doesn't seem like she tends to fight fair."

"Mmmm," Stiles said around a tomato, nodding thoughtfully. He swallowed and sucked his teeth for a minute before opening his mouth again. "So what did that mean, back at Lydia's house? That I'm 'pack'?"

"It means exactly that." Derek looked completely serious, but also slightly nervous, as if he were worried about how Stiles was going to react. "You smell like home. Like I belong with you. I followed that smell out of the woods not even knowing what I was doing. You're . . ." He shrugged helplessly. "You're _pack_."

"Okay," Stiles said. "But what if Laura doesn't want me in the pack?"

"Then Laura will have to learn to live without me again," Derek said stiffly.

"Dude. You can't ditch your sister for me. No way."

Derek glowered. Stiles sighed and took his hand.

"Derek. Come on. Family is important."

"Pack is more important than family to a werewolf." He swallowed and looked apprehensive. "Do you—do you not want to be pack?"

"Oh god, Derek, that's not what I meant at all. I guess I'm not sure what being 'pack' entails, at least not completely, but I'm willing to try. I just don't want to cause trouble by, you know. Shouldering my way into your family circle."

Derek pulled him close. Squeezed him until he could hardly breathe. "I belong with you," Derek said roughly. "If Laura wants us in her pack, then we'll be in her pack. But she doesn't get to choose just me."

"So what do you want to do tonight?" Stiles asked when Derek let him go.

Derek looked down at his hands. "Uh, so . . . tonight's the full moon."

"Oh. Like in—"

"Like in the movies, yes," Derek said, rolling his eyes. "I'll probably go full-shift again, turn into a wolf. But you won't be in danger, I promise, I would never attack a pack member, especially not . . . not you. And I'll want you close. Will you stay with me?"

"Of course I'll stay, Derek." His eyes narrowed. "But no licking. I mean it!"

 

* * *

 

The sheriff was so engrossed in the files in front of him that he'd just pushed the take-out containers off to the side instead of clearing them away. If he'd been certain Stiles would be out of the house all day, he would have taken the case and all its associated paperwork home. Spread it out on the table, poured himself some bourbon, put his head in his hands and just _thought_. His brain always seemed to work best in his own dining room. However, as much as he didn't want to acknowledge the possibility, his son might be involved in this case. Not in Stiles's annoying, usual way, but in the sense that he might actually be complicit in a violent crime. So the sheriff got to stay at the station, behind his uncomfortable, official desk.

He picked up a photo of the crime scene: a pool of blood congealing at the foot of the vending machine. Forensics had typed the blood and said it could be the nurse's, but that led to the question of where the nurse's body was, since there was no way she had lost that much blood and then walked away.

And Peter Hale. They didn't have his blood type, or any medical records on him—bizarre, since he'd been a resident of the hospital for the past six years; the sheriff had asked an administrator sarcastically if that was standard practice, words he now regretted—but the few drops of blood on the floor of his room were from someone different than whoever had bled out in the hallway, so they were guessing it either belonged to Hale or to his attacker.

Unless of course there was another victim.

Which made it all the more imperative to find out if the blood was Peter Hale's or not. The sheriff frowned down at the terse memo from the hospital.

_"To: Sheriff Stilinski_

_"We can find no indication that any member of the Hale family other than Peter Hale has been treated at our facility, and thus we have no medical records for them. I suggest you contact the Beacon Hills Health Information Exchange instead."_

No medical records on the Hales, and thus no blood types for them, either. But the Hales had been a huge family who had lived in Beacon Hills for decades. How likely was it that none of them had visited the only hospital within a hundred and fifty miles? He'd need to come up with a reason to get a sample of Derek's or Laura's blood to compare against the sample from the hospital room, see if it belonged to a family member. I.e., if it belonged to Peter.

He'd have to get blood samples from all three of them, he realized. Derek, Laura and Stiles. Since they'd all been there at the time.

So there was an attacker. At least one. That seemed clear. And unless Peter had woken up, it had to be either the nurse or someone else. What had they broken the window with? How had they transported the body?—both bodies, actually, since Peter was immobile. The wheelchair? Sheriff Stilinski imagined an unknown person (who looked _nothing_ like Stiles) balancing the nurse's bloody corpse on Peter Hale's lap and wheeling them both out of the Long-Term Care wing.

There were only three places they'd found blood, though—the hallway by the vending machine, the floor of Hale's room and the staff room sink. Whoever had moved the corpse had been careful. Or had waited until the blood was dried enough . . . he'd have to take another look at the timeline, see if that was possible.

His desk phone rang.

"Stilinski," he said.

The dispatcher's voice was tense. "Sheriff, Sanders went up to check out the Hale house like you asked. She just radioed in and said that it does look like someone has been staying here, but it's empty now."

"Roger that."

"Uh, one more thing, Sheriff. She said it looks like there's been an . . . altercation. She found some blood on the floor in the entryway along with several sets of footprints."

"Thanks, Tom," the sheriff said. "Radio her and tell her to wait for me, okay?"

"Will do."

 

* * *

 

It was almost evening when the sheriff pulled up in front of the old Hale house. In the light of the setting sun, the building was a hunched silhouette, making him feel like he was stepping onto the set of a gothic horror movie. The only thing missing was the fog.

Sanders's squad car was there, of course, but right next to it was a gorgeous black Camaro with New York plates—a fact either Sanders or the dispatcher hadn't seen fit to mention. Sheriff Stilinski had a sneaking suspicion as to which leather-jacket-wearing Beacon Hills citizen the car belonged to. He walked around it and stopped. The driver-side window had been broken inward, glass littering the driver's seat and cascading down onto the floor. But the car (and its stereo, he saw) was still here, which meant . . . he wasn't sure what it meant. ust one more thing to ask Laura Hale about.

He stepped up onto the porch. "Sanders?"

There was no response. He got his gun out, just in case. The front door was ajar, and he pulled it slowly open. The floor of the entryway was choked with dust and soot, but there was one relatively clear patch, just inside the square created by the second-floor balcony, where it looked like someone had lain and bled for a bit. The blood was smeared as if there had been some thrashing involved. Again, no body, but this time there wasn't enough blood to assume the victim had died.

"Sanders!"

The house half-swallowed his voice and threw the rest back. He shivered.

The dining room was to his right, the living room to his left. Nothing of interest in the dining room except for the tracks of several different boots—and one series of blurred prints from a pair of bare feet.

So if Laura was sleeping here, he supposed she might have been surprised, unprepared, by intruders. He thought of gangs, Mafias, drug cartels. He hoped it wasn't her blood on the floor in the entry way.

In his mind's eye, he watched Laura—if it was Laura—sprint barefoot down the stairs and around into the kitchen. Was she fleeing the intruders or attacking them? There were only a few clear prints, and they didn't lead anywhere in particular. Had she run out the back door or had she come around into the living room?

He followed his gun up the stairs, looking around carefully in every direction. Several doors led off the second-floor landing, although a couple only led out into empty air.

He radioed dispatch. "I'm at the Hale place. Sanders's cruiser is out front, but I don't see her anywhere. Can you get her on the line for me? Over."

"She said she was going to wait," the dispatcher said. "But I'll try. Over."

He found Laura Hale's nest in the last bedroom he investigated. A filthy mattress, a suitcase, some toiletries. He wondered where she showered, since he doubted the plumbing worked anymore, even if the water hadn't been shut off years ago.

The radio crackled. "She isn't answering, Sheriff," the dispatcher said. "Uh. Over."

"Send backup," he said. "I want Forensics here, too, to check this place out. I'm going to go out back and look for Sanders. Over."

"Be careful, sir. Over."

"I will," he said. "Over and out."

He stood outside the back door, playing his flashlight across the trees. It was completely dark now, and he knew there was almost no hope that he'd be able to find Sanders by himself. It seemed clear she'd gone into the forest (or been dragged there, his brain whispered) but which direction she'd headed—and why—was an open question.

"SANDERS!" he called. He walked to the treeline, gun ready, treading quietly in case she answered him. A vain hope—the only sound was a small animal fleeing into the underbrush, and the wind in the trees. " _SANDERRRRRRS!!_ "

He thought he heard footsteps farther on, and he picked up the pace. "Sanders?"

A low groan from up ahead kicked him into a run. His deputy was slumped on the ground at the base of a tree, blood fanning down her face and a set of wicked gouges running across her chest.

"Sanders! Sanders, are you with me?"

She coughed. "Sheriff," she said. "Sorry, I've been a little . . . out of it." The corner of her mouth twitched in an abortive smile.

"Hold still. I've called for backup." He wiped the blood out of her eyes with his sleeve. "Listen to me, Sanders. Do you know what did this to you?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "Heard a noise outside—stepped into the back yard—and then all of a sudden—" She bent over, coughing and groaning. "Think I broke a couple ribs."

"Keep going. This is important. You stepped out the back door, and—"

"And something lunged at me. Mouth full of fangs, bright yellow eyes. And these claws, like . . . I don't know, sir. It was like a cross between a human and an animal. It slashed at my face. I got a couple shots off, then it dug its claws in, right here—" She motioned at her chest. "—and it threw me. Lost my gun. Musta blacked out. Dunno why I'm still alive, actually."

A branch cracked a few yards away, and they both jerked up, looking around. About twenty yards away a pair of bright red eyes was watching them. The sheriff pointed his light and his gun at it and revealed a nightmare: a huge, hairy clot of darkness, with gnarled monster limbs, a leathery goblin face and eyes like two evil rubies.

An instant later a second and third figure joined it, these on two legs. One had shining golden eyes; the other's were electric blue. A triple growl rumbled through the forest. The sheriff found himself wishing Sanders hadn't lost her gun.

"Sanders, can you get up?"

"I don't know, sir, but I'll try."

The sheriff put an arm around the deputy and she lurched to her feet, breath hitching in her chest. The three . . . what the hell were they? Beasts? Demons? . . . the three beasts stalked slowly towards them.

"Run," the sheriff ordered.

They ran, but the beasts ran faster. He felt one of them seize his arm, claws punching through jacket and skin as if through Saran wrap, and he shoved Sanders forward.

"Get to the house," he shouted, and then he hit the ground and what felt like a ton of fur and teeth and claws landed on top of him.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why this was so hard for me to write. I hope it was worth the wait. :)

They were on the bed, which Stiles was discovering was a much more comfortable place to snuggle a wolf than a rocky clearing in the forest.  Derek had fallen asleep just as quickly, in any case, and was currently snoozing on Stiles's lap.

"I should invest in some doggy treats for nights like these," Stiles mused to himself. "I could teach you tricks! Like the trick of YOU NOT GETTING YOUR SPIT ALL OVER ME. GAAAAAHHHHH."

'Comfort' was a relative term.

Derek raised his head and _whuff_ ed groggily at him.

Stiles put on a frown. "You don't even look guilty, you horrible beast. That's right, I said it. BEAST."

Now Derek did look guilty, or at least abashed. He clambered up to stick his nose in Stiles's face, stepping on several tender body parts in the process.

"Ouch! Ugh. Enough." Stiles pushed him back onto the bed. “Also, I’m warning you, if you start humping me I'm kicking you off onto the floor. I know you're not actually an animal, but, yeah. No way."

Derek whimpered and hid his nose under his paws.

"Aw, come on. I'm sorry." He grabbed the sides of Derek’s head. "Who's the cutest wolf-puppy in the world? That's right! It's you!” He gave Derek a shake. “WHO’S a good boy. WHO’S a good boy. Yeah!”

Derek gave him a wolf-grin and swiped his tongue up the side of Stiles’s face.

Stiles was just getting into his scolding when the downstairs phone rang. “Hold that thought,” he told the wolf. No one called the house phone except the station—and since they were always looking for his dad, they never called when the sheriff was on shift. He lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“Stiles, it’s Sanders.” Her breath hitched like she had swallowed a hiccup.

“Deputy? Are you okay?”

“It’s your dad,” she said. “He’s missing.”

Time slowed. "What do you mean, missing?"

“The sheriff and I were attacked," Sanders said. "A group of . . . some kind of animal. Your dad got me away, told me to run. I made it back to the house—"

"You left him behind to go _home?_ " Nothing was making sense. Sanders was better than this.

"No, the Hale house. We were in the woods behind . . . anyway. I found my gun outside the back door. Fired over their heads because I didn't want to hit the sheriff. Saw them grab him. I'm so sorry." She was crying now. "The force has been combing the woods for an hour, but they think he wandered somewhere under his own power or maybe was dragged off by a mountain lion, so they're staying pretty close to the house. I know what I saw. They had hands, Stiles. They picked him up and took off, fast—faster than a horse, probably." She let out a huge breath. "They could be in the next county by now."

It had to be werewolves, or something like werewolves. He swallowed. "Okay, we need to stay calm. Sanders, where are you?"

"I'm hiding from the EMTs at the side of the house, the department didn't want me talking to you. Oh, there's Quigley, gotta go."

The line went dead. Something touched his leg and he jumped, tossing the telephone handset in the air. It was Derek, still in wolf form, sniffing anxiously at Stiles's thigh.

"Something took Dad," Stiles said. He didn't know if Derek-the-human was listening, but he had to tell someone. His only other option was to curl up into a ball and cry. "Snatched him out of the woods. I was hoping if I just pretended things were normal that it'd keep him out of this, keep him safe, but—" He stopped. “I have to get him back. That's it. You and I together. We'll get him back.”

They would need help. He knew that. He pulled out his phone and dialed Scott.

“Come on, Scott,” he muttered. “Pick up pick up pick up pick up.”

A click on the other end. “whuzzit,” Scott said muzzily.

“Scott, dude, it’s bad, it’s really bad. Werewolves kidnapped my dad. We gotta get him back.”

“Huhhhhwhat?” It really did not sound like Scott was firing on all cylinders.

He heard another voice in the background, then Scott responding, “Stiles. ‘E sounds upset.”

Allison was suddenly on the line. “Stiles. What’s going on?”

“Thank god. Allison, listen. My dad and one of his deputies were out in the woods behind the Hale house tonight. Some werewolves attacked them, and the deputy says she saw them carry my dad off.”

“Fuck,” Allison said. “Did you call Laura?”

“I don't have her number.”

“What about Lydia?”

“Um . . . I don't have her number either?” He totally did have Lydia's number, but the only way to keep that fact a secret was to never use it. Which kind of defeated the purpose and made him regret the lengths he had gone to to get it in the first place. Ah, hindsight.

"I'll call her. We'll meet you at your house. _Stay. There._ " The line went dead.

He sat down and hugged Derek as tight as he could, burying his face in his fur.

 

* * *

 

The first person to arrive was Lydia, dressed in black leggings and a black jacket, a black duffel at her side. Jackson was standing next to her, looking furious.

"What's he doing here?" Stiles said.

"I thought we might need muscle," Lydia replied, pushing past him. "Come, Jackson." She went straight to dining room and set the duffel gently on the table.

"So we vote on my dad but we don't vote on _Jackson?_ "

"Shut up, Stiles," Jackson said.

Lydia put a hand on her hip and cocked her head. "We didn't vote on your dad being kidnapped, either, but that ended up happening anyway. You'll just have to live with this."

"Kidnapped?" Jackson said. "You said—"

"I know, sweetheart." Lydia looked contrite. "I didn't want to frighten you."

Stiles clapped Jackson on the shoulder. "Short story, Jackson: You’re a raging douchebag; werewolves are real; and my dad was kidnapped by a couple tonight. We're going to rescue him. Sure you wanna help out?"

Lydia glared. "I was going to work up to those details," she said.

"Werewolves?" Jackson scoffed. "This is a sex thing, isn't it."

"Jackson, please," Lydia said.

"So you're a _furry_ now? What, do you dream of someone dressing up as a wolf and going down on you?"

Lydia's cheeks went ever-so-slightly pink. "This is not a sex thing. This is a serious thing, and we need your help."

"Fuck this. I'm leaving."

"Jackson." Lydia's tone was unyielding. "If you walk out that door right now, we are no longer together."

"Fine," he said, marching out of the dining room.

"Aaaaand I'll have no choice but to release that special video I recorded of you. You know the one. Last February? I'm sure it would be very popular."

Jackson hesitated. "You wouldn't. My dad—"

"Would probably disown you," Lydia said. She raised a challenging eyebrow. "So. What'll it be?"

Jackson's face was purple and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. But he stayed.

"Good." Lydia waved in the direction of the living room. "Go sit out of the way somewhere and wait for me to call you."

When Jackson was safely seated on the couch, Lydia turned back to Stiles. "Allison told me what was going on," she said. "I’d call Laura, but she’s out in the Preserve, running her full-moon frustrations out, I assume. Who knows where her phone is or if she's even wearing clothes at this point." That faint blush made a reappearance.

"Laura's out in the Preserve?"

"That's what I just said."

"My dad was taken from the Preserve. At the Hale house. By werewolves. And besides Derek, Laura's the only other werewolf we know of . . ."

"The Preserve is over twenty thousand acres, Stiles. Most of it isn't anywhere near the Hale house."

"Still . . ."

"Still nothing. Let's plan." She unzipped the duffel and held up a couple of bottles. "These are self-igniting Molotov cocktails. I've spent the last few hours making them. There are only six, so we have to use them wisely." She shrugged at Stiles's look. "I thought it was wise to be prepared, now that my life is suddenly so full of danger and excitement." Next she pulled out a Taser, a can of Mace, and a scary-looking black baton with two metal prongs on one end.

"Jesus," Stiles said. "Is that a cattle prod?"

"A high-powered shock baton," Lydia said. "Highly illegal. My dad got a little overprotective after the divorce."

"Lydia, I love you," Stiles said.

Jackson snarled in the other room.

"Keep it in your pants, Stiles," she said. "We aren't friends, and we are _never_ sleeping together."

Stiles sighed. "I know. And . . . I'm mostly okay with that."

Lydia glanced at him. "Derek is good for you," she said. "Don't fuck things up with him." She looked around. "Where is he, anyway?"

"I shut him in the bedroom," Stiles said. "He didn't react too well to other people the last time he was in wolf form, and tonight's the full moon, so . . ."

"We'll need his help," she said. "We'd be crazy to take on two werewolves with nothing but a few firebombs and a stun gun. I assume he's how we're going to find your dad, too. Yes?"

"Yeah, I think he can sniff out their hiding place. I got some rope out of the garage and I'm working on a halter for him. If things go south I'll let him loose and . . . hope he attacks the right people."

"That's reassuring," Lydia said. "I'm glad you've thought this through."

"Hey, if you don't like it, you don't have to help. I didn't even invite you!"

She smirked. "Oh, this promises to be far too much fun to miss out on. Besides, with me along you have a much greater chance of not dying, because that kind of thing pisses me off and I won't allow it." She gripped the shock baton fiercely.

The front door opened and Scott and Allison tumbled through, arguing with each other.

"I just really think we should tell him," Scott was saying stubbornly. "He could help."

"Tell who what?" Lydia said, folding her arms.

"Deaton," Allison said apologetically.

"No," Lydia said. "We already discussed this. And if anyone tells him it should be Laura, and she's not available, so . . ."

"There's something else," Allison said. "Go on, Scott."

Scott swallowed. "So I don't think Dr. Deaton is a vet. Or, not _just_ a vet," he amended. "The night we brought Derek into the clinic—when we still thought he was a wolf—Dr. Deaton pulled this tiny piece of silver out of his foot."

"The vet had a piece of silver in his foot?" Jackson had come up when no one was looking.

"No, the _wolf's_ foot, dumbass," Stiles said. He turned back to Scott "But we already knew that. I was there. Remember?"

"Yeah, you were there for that part. But on Saturday I put in an extra-long shift, and I think Dr. Deaton forgot I was there. When I was getting ready to leave, I saw him in his office with that piece of silver. He'd cleared his desk off, and he'd put the silver in the middle and surrounded it with . . . leaves. Herbs. Something." He looked around at the others. "He was _chanting_ over it."

"Scott thinks he's a witch," Allison said.

"I didn't say witch!" Scott protested.

"Whatever," Lydia said. "If werewolves are real then magic might be real, too, but discovering that Deaton has secret pretensions to performing spells does not make me feel _more_ like trusting him."

"You don't understand," Scott said. "Dr. Deaton is one of the best people I know. If he uses magic, he uses it to help people. I'm _sure_ of it."

"We could use more help," Stiles said. "Why don't we just ask him? If he gives us any trouble, we'll cattle-prod him." He looked around. "So, uh. Should we vote?"

"I vote we go home," Jackson said.

"You don't get a vote, doucheknob," Stiles said.

Lydia folded her arms. "I'm not sure it's appropriate to vote when Laura isn't here to represent herself."

"Fine," Stiles said. "No voting. Let's just do it."

Scott nodded enthusiastically. Lydia and Allison exchanged a reluctant glance, but finally they nodded as well.

"Great." Stiles rubbed his hands together. "Scott, where would Deaton be right now?" His dad was out there somewhere. Hopefully alive. No, definitely alive, but—oh god, maybe in pain. _We're coming for you, Dad,_ he thought.

 

* * *

 

All the sheriff knew was that it was pitch black and he seemed to be slumped against a cold concrete wall, hands stretched over his head. Everything hurt, but he couldn't remember why—who had traced these lines of fire down his back, where had this pulsing knot of agony at the back of his neck come from? Even breathing was painful—fluid bubbled in his lungs, and he was sure he had at least one broken rib. One of his eyes felt funny—sticky, almost—but when he tried to touch it, to probe it with his fingers, his hand wouldn't move, just continued hanging in the air, locked above him, suspended from—what?—manacles. For several seconds he couldn't believe it, and he pulled and yanked at the shackles in panic until he was gasping and coughing and he could feel blood trickling down his wrists.

He finally forced himself to calm down and listen and think.

Someone was muttering in the dark, a few feet away to his left. The clank of metal made him think the other person—whoever it was—was fettered as well.

“Hello?” he said. His voice was a dry croak. “Who’s there?”

A pair of shining yellow eyes blinked at him and he was answered by a series of feral snarls and howls. Whatever his fellow prisoner was, it wasn't human.

He remembered. _Sanders lying bleeding and broken at the foot of the tree behind the Hale house. The three Beasts looming out of the darkness. Him telling Sanders to run. Claws catching him from behind, flinging him to the ground, a pair of unforgiving jaws closing on the back of his neck . . ._

A light snapped on suddenly, and the sheriff cringed at the overpowering brilliance. When his eyes adjusted he saw he was in a warehouse, mostly bare except for trash, some broken shelving, a ratty old couch and a couple of chairs. And a man with a burn scar stretching down the side of his face.

“Hello, Sheriff,” Peter Hale said. “It’s good to see you again. I wish I could say you were looking well, but—“

“Fuck you,” the sheriff growled. “Let me go.” The growl made him cough again, and the crushing pain from his ribs almost made him sob out loud.

When the paroxysm had passed, Peter Hale shook his head. “Let you go? I wish I could, but the moon is still up, and the Alpha thought you should be contained for safety’s sake. Especially after the unfortunate incident with your deputy.” He glared momentarily at the beast hanging next to the sheriff. The creature snarled and snapped and rolled its yellow eyes menacingly, but Peter dismissed it with a sneer.

“Please,” the sheriff said. “My ribs are broken, I was clawed and bitten. I need a doctor.”

Peter Hale’s smile widened and he stepped closer. “But Sheriff, that’s the good news—you won’t ever need a doctor again.”

“No, really, I—“

The other man spoke over him in that pleasant, silken voice. “At this point only two things will happen: you’ll die, or you’ll transform. In either case, you’ll be beyond the reach of medical science.”

Die? He couldn't die. He wasn't allowed to die. “I have a son. I can’t leave him.”

“I know. The skinny, spastic kid with the obscene lips. Stiles. I've met him.” Peter was almost close enough to touch. “He wasn't very polite.”

“If you've touched my son—“

“Don’t worry! I was playing the paralytic vegetable at the time. My associate here manhandled him a bit, but my nephew made her pay for that.”

“Your ‘associate’ did _what?_ ”

Peter ignored this. “You could show a some gratitude, you know,” he said. “The Alpha displayed extraordinary condescension tonight. The Bite isn't given to just anyone.”

“I don’t understand.”

A sad, patient smile. “No. But you will.” He cocked his head as if listening. “Anyway, this chat has been fun, but the Alpha will be here in a second to talk to you.”

The sheriff looked around. “The Alpha. Is that—“

“The furry black rage monster you saw in the forest? One and the same. She stayed behind to reconnoiter, keep an eye on the police investigation.”

**“Peter. Enough.”**

This new voice hummed through the sheriff’s bones. It shook all the thoughts out of his head and filled their place with fire. Peter seemed affected as well; his eyes went unfocused and he shivered.

“Yes, of course,” he mumbled, turning away and dropping into a chair.

The red-eyed creature from the forest stalked into view, a dark-furred monstrosity the size of a bear. At first her body seemed ungainly and out of proportion, but at second glance it was obvious that the Alpha's movements were a gorgeous combination of grace and barely-leashed violence. She brought her nose close to the sheriff and snuffled at his face and neck.

 **“Not long now,”** she said. **“Are you prepared, Sheriff?”**

Sheriff Stilinski was mortified to hear himself squeak. “Uh. Prepared? For what?”

**“For the end of your old life and the beginning of a new one. For your entry into my Pack.”**

“Pack? I don’t—“

 **“Six years ago, a murderer or murderers burned the Hale family home to the ground, taking ten souls with it. It is finally time for those responsible to pay—with their blood and their lives, in pain and torment, in fire and flames and with bitter, impotent tears.”** The red eyes glowed with anger. **“You can either accept your role as a tool of vengeance—as a werewolf—or you can die. This is your choice. This is the only choice open to you.”**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~So I made Peter's eyes yellow in the last update because I didn't think we'd ever seen his pre-alpha form, but I may have been wrong. Let me know if so and I'll fix it.~~
> 
>  
> 
> [Oh, btw, I'm lovelornwolf on Tumblr IF IT EVER FREAKING COMES BACK UP *SOB SOB SOB*]
> 
> ETA 07/18/2013: Peter's eyes were updated in the previous chapter to blue to reflect RECENT CANON REVELATIONS!!!


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! What with finals and being sick and then being sick again, I haven't had much time to write. Hope you enjoy the update. I expect the next one to come out sometime within the next three days.

Stiles could hear Derek whining and growling in the bedroom before he even reached the landing. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him, and Derek was immediately all up in his space, scenting him and curling his lip at the strange smells on his clothing.

"Hey, buddy, hey there." He knelt down and ruffled Derek's ears, the improvised muzzle in his left hand. "I know, you don't understand. Lots of new people downstairs—well, new to wolf-you, not person-you—I totally get it. But see, here's the thing. I need your help to find my dad, which means—" He slipped the loop of rope around Derek's jaws and gently tightened it down. "—which means I need you to behave. No biting, no shoving. No running away."

Derek was tossing his head, trying to throw the muzzle off. Stiles wrapped the loose ends under the wolf's jaw and tied them behind his ears.

"Sh-sh-sh-shhhhhh," he said, stroking Derek's coat. "It's okay. If I need you to bite someone, trust me, I'll get rid of this right away. Okay?"

He'd found an old dog collar in the garage, but the wolf was not interested in wearing it. In the end he had to chase Derek around the room and corner him on the bed before he could put the collar on. Someone knocked at the door.

"Stiles, is everything okay?" Allison said.

"Yeah," he grunted. "Just a minor disagreement about accessories. Be out in a minute."

There hadn't been any leashes that he could find, and none of the rope had made him feel at all confident, but there had been what looked like a horse lead with a heavy clip on the end, which was probably better than anything he could have improvised. Once he had it attached to the collar, he checked the muzzle, gave the lead a couple of experimental tugs, and led Derek downstairs.

The wolf was sulking too hard to even growl, and the other teenagers soon relaxed enough to come tentatively into the kitchen to meet him.

"No touching," Stiles said. "Speak quietly, and don't show your teeth or give him any really direct looks."

"He is so adorable," Allison said. "Now _I_ want a wolf."

Lydia didn't say anything, but she tapped her lips consideringly. Stiles wondered uncomfortably what she was thinking about. Whatever she was planning, he was not loaning Derek to her.

"Great," Jackson said brusquely. "Now that Stiles has his puppy under control, can we decide what we're doing already?"

"Dr. Deaton said he'd meet us at the animal clinic," Scott said.

"What'd you tell him?" Stiles asked.

Scott blushed. "Uh . . . enough?"

Lydia frowned. "Great. Bad enough that we had to involve Deaton without Laura's consent, but now you've started just giving him information without me there to filter it?"

Stiles crossed his arms. "Lydia, this isn't your, er, operation. This is _my_ dad we're rescuing."

"Fine," she said. "I'll let you be in charge. For now." She glared at Scott. "But you are telling me _everything_ you told Deaton before I face Laura again."

 

* * *

 

They ended up leaving the Porsche, to Jackson's glowering displeasure.

"If there is even _one scratch_ on her when we get back," Jackson said.

"Yeah, yeah," Stiles said. "It's parked in the Sheriff's driveway, I think it'll be fine. Now hop in the back."

Derek had already claimed the front seat of the Jeep, but fortunately neither Lydia nor Jackson appeared to want to argue with him about it.

The clinic was dark when they arrived, but Deaton opened the door before they could knock and motioned them into what looked like an operating room. He stood patiently, one eyebrow raised, waiting for them to explain themselves.

"You know about Derek," Scott said.

Deaton glanced over to where Stiles was sweet-talking the wolf. "We've met," the vet admitted carefully.

"And you know that he's not just a wolf."

"An interesting way of putting it." Deaton's smile communicated amusement. "Yes."

"Stiles's dad was taken," Allison cut in. "Abducted. We think by werewolves."

"And one of the deputies was hurt pretty bad, too," Stiles added.

The vet's gaze sharpened. "Were either of them bitten? Or clawed deeply—especially on the upper torso?"

"She just called and said they'd been attacked. Why?"

Deaton waved the question off. "Where did the attack occur?"

"In the woods behind the Hale house."

The vet was silent, brow furrowed.

"Please," Stiles said. "We need to get him back."

"We know you have magic," Scott said. "Can you help us?"

Deaton grimaced. "Perhaps. Wait here." He was back in less than a minute, carrying three glass bottles and a slim silver knife. He held up the objects one at a time.

"This is wolfsbane paste. It is very dangerous to werewolves, even on contact, but it is especially deadly if used to coat weapons. Knives, bullets, arrowheads." He gave the muzzled wolf a significant glance. "It is as effective against werewolf allies as werewolf enemies, so use it wisely." He handed it to Allison, who took it gingerly. He held up the second bottle. "This powder is made from the bark of the mountain ash, also known as the rowan tree. In powdered form it is mostly used for setting up _ad hoc_ barriers. If you are in danger, surround yourself with a line of this powder and it should stop most supernatural threats." He held the bottle out to Stiles. "The key lies in believing that it will work. If you don't believe, it's just a line of dust on the floor—not even as useful as wolfsbane at stopping werewolves."

The next item was the dagger.

"That's silver, isn't it?" Lydia frowned. "Great. Another werewolf movie cliché substantiated."

The vet shook his head. "Werewolves aren't affected by silver per se, no. But among all the metals, silver is the most susceptible to being enchanted." He held up the third bottle—a little flask with a shard of shiny metal in it. "I removed this from Derek's foot when he was here last week. It appears to be the head of a dart or small arrow—and it held a spell meant to disrupt his transformation."

Stiles's mouth fell open. "So that's why—"

"Why he spent the last six years as a wolf?" Deaton finished. "Yes. It didn't function quite right—from what I could tell, it was supposed to make him lose control, lose his mind and his humanity completely. It might have worked if it had been shot directly into the heart, but whoever attacked him missed and got his forepaw instead."

"His hand," Stiles said. "She wouldn't have missed. She shot him and he . . . tried to block it, or catch it. It was probably right after the fire—he said she was waiting for him outside. That she laughed at him."

Allison looked ill. "Kate?" she said.

Stiles nodded. "Yeah." He shook himself. "Anyway. The dagger?"

The vet held up the knife again. "I have a theory. These attacks have made me think that we're dealing with a rogue alpha. Possibly a deranged one. I don't know for sure, but I think it is a possibility that the alpha was, er, prepared the same way as Derek was—except in this case, the curse worked as intended."

"So the dagger will kill it?" Stiles asked.

"No," Deaton said. "Not if used properly. I've laid a spell on this knife to counteract the curse I found in the arrowhead. If I'm right, then piercing the alpha's heart will break the curse and return him or her to normal." Stiles held out his hand for the knife, but Deaton shook his head. "I cannot recommend that you use this," he said.

"What? Why?"

"Because it's far too dangerous for a human to grapple with an alpha like that. There's only one member of your party who might come out of such an encounter alive." He gave Derek a significant look.

Stiles smirked. "Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly have the manual dexterity to stab anything at the moment, so—"

"Which is why you need to anchor him," Deaton said.

"What?"

"He has lived as a wild animal ever since he was thirteen. Any control he once had during the full moon is long gone. He needs you to bring him back."

Everyone was staring. Stiles swallowed. "I don't know what you mean. Bring him back? How?"

"Every mature werewolf has an anchor. Something they can hold onto internally, a firm point of reference that allows them to keep their humanity under stress or during the full moon. For some it's an emotion, like love, or loss, or anger. For others, a strong memory. And for a few, it is a person."

Stiles laughed. "You mean me? Why me?"

Deaton smiled. "Didn't you ever wonder why, out of all the foolish kids getting drunk in the woods, all the couples making out, all the transients and hikers that pass through the Preserve, Derek came to you?"

"He said . . . he said I smelled like family. Like home." He shrugged nervously. "Like pack."

"I don't know what bond links the two of you," Deaton said. "It may be that you are family. Not all the Hales were werewolves, after all."

 _Shit,_ Stiles thought. _I've touched his dick! I had my dick in his ass! Oh god we'd better not really be family._

Some of his consternation must have showed on his face. Deaton laughed. "Or you may not be related at all. It's only a hypothesis. In any case, you are Derek's only hope of regaining his humanity right now—and without Derek's conscious, consenting help, you have no chance going up against an alpha."

"Too bad Laura isn't here," Lydia said.

Deaton cocked his head. "Yes, where is she?"

Lydia shrugged. "She told me her control was a little shaky lately, that it was safer for her to go spend the full moon in the woods, away from people."

"Did she," Deaton said. "That's interesting. Before the fire, Laura was well-known for having excellent control, even from a very young age. Her parents were very proud."

Lydia looked thoughtful. And not particularly happy.

Stiles held up the silver knife and imagined running into Laura—an angry, insane Laura who wanted to kill him. He tried to picture stabbing her in the heart. Then he tried to picture Derek stabbing her. He couldn't. "We might be in trouble," he said.

 

* * *

 

Laura's mother was angry. Really angry. Terrifyingly angry, to a degree she'd never seen ( _when Mother was alive_ ). Whatever her mother was upset about, little Laura knew it was her fault, so she ran and hid in the basement, in the dark, and covered her ears and mouth, trying not to hear the thumps and bangs from upstairs, the house trembling with her mother's rage. Even as a child, she knew instinctively that an enraged alpha was one of the few people who could truly harm her. So she hid and she wept silent tears and over and over she whispered _i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry forgive me forgive me forgive me_

 

* * *

 

Deaton had locked Stiles and Derek in one of the exam rooms.

"Don't come out until he's human," the vet said sternly.

"But my _dad_ —" Stiles tried.

"Going after your dad like that is just going to get you and your friends killed."

Scott came up and looked in through the window. "How's it going, dude?" he said.

"Eh. No idea. What's everyone else up to?"

"Allison's dipping her arrows in wolfsbane. Uh, Lydia's drawing up some really terrifying designs for, I don't know what, but it looks painful. Jackson's in the corner. Sneering."

"Great. This is just great. Why'd I call you guys for help again?"

Derek had flopped down on the linoleum and was whining.

"Oh, all right," Stiles said. "I guess the only person you could attack right now is me, and you said you wouldn't do that, so."

He undid the collar and removed the rope muzzle. Derek immediately yawned and then licked his face.

"Oh god, I take it back," Stiles said. "You should just wear a muzzle all the time, your tongue is a MENACE." He rubbed Derek's fur. "I love you."

The wolf flicked an ear towards the sound of his voice. Maybe a good sign?

"It's silly to say it this early, we only met on Thursday, but—if you left it would rip me in half. I didn't know I was waiting for you until there you were, filling up the gaps in my life." He gave the wolf a hug. "I don't know why you transform—if it's a fear response, or an aggressive posture, or—I just need you back. I need _Derek_. I need your help, I need the Derek who can hold me, and understand me, and love me like a human being."

Derek shuddered, his scruff rising and the falling, and he let out a confused _huff_ of air.

"I'm sure being a wolf is all kinds of comfortable, and I'm sorry, but you need to ignore this hard, comfortable floor and fight the pull of the moon or whatever and follow my voice back." He lifted Derek's head and held it between his hands so they could look each other in the eye. "I'm not going to stop talking until you change back. I'm sure you've figured out that I can talk all night if I have to, and it doesn't have to be about anything interesting, either. I could spend the next hour talking about—about the history of the male circumcision, which you don't seem to have much personal experience with, by the way. Do werewolves not do that? Would it just grow back? Or is it just your family? I mean, I'm not complaining at all. There are a hundred things I want to do with your foreskin. Your _human_ foreskin, I should specify."

The wolf broke free from Stiles's hold and shrugged arduously up until he was mostly man-shaped. More sideburns and fewer eyebrows than usual, but still recognizably Derek.

"Shut up," Derek said, his voice sounding thick coming through that mouthful of teeth. He swallowed and the fangs and most of the facial hair disappeared.

"Make me," Stiles said.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the update. A day later than I was hoping. Sorry. :(

It was late. Chris was in his study, chasing a hunch through the family journals and books of lore. Victoria was undoubtedly in the basement with her newest sub. He couldn't be sure, of course. It's not like he checked up on her exploits. The less he knew, the better.

"Where's Allison?" Kate said. She was standing in the doorway with her arms folded and his least favorite expression on her face—a look of private enjoyment, like she had caught him out in something.

Chris looked up from the tome he was perusing and frowned. "Why do you want to know?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "She's my only niece, and she's not at home. Am I not allowed to worry?"

"You can worry all you want," Chris said with a thin smile. "What you aren't allowed to do is to drop any more hints to her about hunting—don't deny it, I know you planted those flash-bangs in the garage for her to find. You aren't allowed to undermine my and Victoria's authority, especially where that boyfriend of hers is concerned. You aren't—"

"Cool it, Chris," Kate said. She closed the door of the study. "Let's get one thing straight. I tolerate your 'wise older brother' act because it amuses me, but don't kid yourself—you have no authority or credibility with me, not after what you did six years ago. And don't forget that it's thanks to _me_ that our father never found out about your little escapade, because you might not even be alive right now if he knew. Not to mention what Victoria would do to you if she ever figured out what a sham your marriage is."

Chris cleared his throat. "Victoria and I have an understanding. If you say one word to her, you'll be the one begging for mercy for sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

"And Gerard? Do you and Father also have an 'understanding'?"

"It's been six years, Kate," Chris said. "Let it go."

"Six years? Try six days," Kate spat. "You still visit him. You're his _only_ visitor."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Chris said stonily. He'd made sure to always use a fake name when he signed the visitor log, so there was no way for her to prove the accusation.

She smiled and changed tacks. "So, back to Allison. Where is she?"

"She's spending the night at a friend's."

"I think you mean at her _boyfriend's,_ " Kate said. She tutted. "They really need to get their own supply of condoms."

" _What?_ " Chris was on his feet, fists clenched.

His sister laughed. "What, you didn't know? Oh, Chris, you really are slipping."

"Out," he said. "Get. Out."

He could still hear her laughing after she closed the door. He put his head in his hands and thought for a minute, then opened his laptop and went to the website for their cell provider. If Allison was really at Scott's house, he would know it in a minute.

 

* * *

 

Derek had left his borrowed clothes at the Stilinski house, so once again he found himself crouching naked on the floor of the veterinary exam room. It was an experience he hoped he would not have to continue reliving.

Stiles reached between Derek's legs and tweaked his dick. "Hello there, long time no see," he said.

" _Stiles,_ " Derek said, grabbing his wrist.

Stiles just laughed. "I'll go ask if anyone can lend you some clothes. Otherwise you'll just have to track my dad down naked."

He looked like the idea gave him a certain amount of private enjoyment. Derek could feel himself snarling petulantly, but that just made Stiles laugh harder. His boyfriend got up, still chortling, and knocked on the still-locked exam room door.

"Hey Scott—uh, no, I'm pretty sure you don't want to look in there. No need to explain, right? So! On that subject, can you ask Deaton if he has any extra scrubs lying around that Derek could squeeze into?"

"Oh god." Scott's voice sounded horrified. "Yeah. Uh. I'll go. Ask."

"Thanks! Oh, also, ask if we can come out now that Derek is human again." Stiles came back and sat down next to Derek. "I'm glad you're back," he said.

Derek put his arms around Stiles. "I'm glad I'm back, too." He paused. "So . . . what happened to your dad?"

"I guess that answers the question of how much you remember when you're in wolf mode," Stiles said.

"I remember! Just not . . . I don't pay attention to words very much." He _harrumph_ ed. "I remember you locking me in your room while _strangers_ invaded your house. And I remember the muzzle."

Stiles blushed. "Shit. I was hoping we could pretend the muzzling didn't happen. And they weren't strangers, they're my friends." He paused. "Well, aside from Jackson. And Lydia would probably tell me to leave her out of the 'friends' category as well."

"I'm not angry. It would've been worse if I'd bitten someone. It's just . . . I was really looking forward to our first full moon together. Just the two of us. And then—"

"—my dad had to get himself kidnapped?"

"Kidnapped?"

"Yeah. By the alpha, it sounds like."

Deaton came in then, a set of scrubs bundled in one arm. He closed the door behind him and handed the clothing to Derek, before politely turning his back. Stiles, on the other hand, took the opportunity to make several impolite—and lascivious—comments about Derek's butt. Derek knew he was blushing, but he couldn't stop.

"We think it's Laura," Stiles said once the clothing was all on. He rubbed his head. "The rogue alpha. Except not—not quite Laura."

"Go on," Derek said.

Deaton held out a jar with a tiny silver dart in it. "This is what I extracted from your foot—"

"Hand," Stiles interjected.

" _Forepaw,_ " Deaton said. "It carried a powerful, if somewhat crude curse that I believe was meant to destabilize your transformations."

"We think it's why you spent the last six years howling at the moon," Stiles interjected.

"It's my theory that your sister is under the influence of a similar curse. One that leaves her with no memory of her actions as an alpha."

Derek nodded reluctantly. "It's her," he said. "I noticed at the hospital—when she lost control in the parking lot, the smell was the same as the alpha that broke into the Argents' house."

"You knew?" Stiles said. He sounded hurt.

"I suspected," Derek said. "I wasn't sure. And it was a bizarre accusation to make in any case, especially since Laura was telling me the truth when she said she wasn't the alpha I'd run into."

"I think you mean, the alpha that ran into _me,_ " Stiles said.

"It didn't run into you," Derek said.

"Landed on top of me. Whatever."

Derek rolled his eyes and put a hand over his boyfriend's mouth. "Quiet now," he said. He looked at Deaton. "So what do we do?"

Stiles made an indignant noise against Derek's hand. Then he started licking.

"That," Derek said, dropping his hand, "is _cheating._ "

"Yeah, whatever, grumpy-guts. So is using superior werewolf strength to hold back the tide of my wit and wisdom."

"Fine," Derek said. "No more cheating. From either of us." And he pulled Stiles in and kissed him.

Stiles was breathing hard when they broke the kiss. "Everything about you is cheating," he said. "The whole package. Monumentally unfair advantage right from the get-go."

Deaton cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid I do have other places to be."

Stiles stared at him. "You mean you aren't coming with us?"

The veterinarian shook his head. "It's not time for me to become openly involved," he said.

"I hear a 'yet' in there," Stiles said.

Deaton turned back to Derek. "I believe you were asking what you should do." He produced a small silver knife. "I have prepared this as a countermeasure against the curse."

Derek frowned. "I stab Laura with that, it's just going to make her madder." An unpleasant thought struck him. "Unless you mean—"

"I don't think it will be necessary to kill her," Deaton said. "What _is_ necessary is that she be stabbed directly in the heart. Even better would be to open up her chest and surgically remove the cursed arrowhead, but I'm not sure we can hope for her to cooperate while we do that."

"Both of those options suck," Stiles said. "Why don't we just wait until the full moon is over, and ask her? When she's not absolutely terrifying and deranged, Laura's pretty cool."

The veterinarian's expression was dark. "I would if I could promise she has that long left."

"What do you mean?" Derek said.

"There is something about her behavior I still don't understand," Deaton said. "The curse, as I read it, should cause her to lose control of her alpha form. To become a ravening, inhuman monster any time she shifts—besides making it more likely that she will shift against her will. But, while there have been a few attacks, there has been nothing like the sheer carnage I would have expected if the curse were operating as designed. She almost seems to be acting according to a plan, which shouldn't be possible."

"Why does that mean she might not outlast the full moon?"

The veterinarian shook his head. "I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it makes me wonder if someone else is pulling her strings. Someone who possibly will view her as expendable once they've achieved their goal." He sighed. "My other suspicion is that after spending the full moon under the curse's influence, Laura will find it harder and harder to fight its effects in the future. Possibly leaving her permanently in this rogue alpha form."

"Okay," Derek said. "So we try to fix her tonight. Now."

"And get my dad back," Stiles said.

"And your dad."

Someone knocked on the door.

"Is it safe to come in?" Scott said from outside.

"If you mean, 'Is Derek's wiener safely hidden,' then yes," Stiles called back.

"Ugh, you suck," Scott said, barging in. "Anyway. Allison has her arrows all poisoned up, and Lydia rigged a superweapon out of the Taser, her cattle prod thingy and a car battery. She says she's not sure how effective it'll be against the alpha, but it might slow it down." Scott grinned. "Jackson's job is to carry it. He's massively pissed, it's so awesome."

Allison, Lydia and Jackson were waiting for them in the waiting room.

"We ready?" Lydia said.

"More or less," Stiles said.

"Glad you're still planning for every eventuality, Stiles," she said, but it sounded almost fond.

Jackson glowered over the pile of dangerously jerry-rigged crap in his arms. "Come on, Stilinski, let's go already so I can put this down someday." He seemed to enjoy having his muscles on display, though.

"Wait," Stiles said. "Where did you get the battery from?"

Allison coughed. "My car. Uh, I guess we're all riding in your Jeep somehow?"

 

* * *

 

It took a few seconds for Chris to understand what the online map tool was telling him. Apparently his daughter's cell phone wasn't at Lydia's house OR Scott's house. It was on the opposite side of town, in or right around—

"Beacon Hills Animal Clinic?" he muttered disbelievingly.

Why would Allison be hanging around at the vet's office? Scott worked there, but not at 11:55pm on a Sunday night.

Maybe she'd left her cell there earlier in the day. But no, that didn't make sense, either, since she'd sent her parents a text at seven to let them know she'd be staying at Lydia's. So she must've had her phone then, whether she was lying about the location of the sleepover or not.

On the other hand, the clinic had been targeted by an unknown group of hunters earlier that week. Those tantalizing clues Kate had been leaving around . . . had Allison been investigating on her own? Had she gotten involved in action already? Or worse—had she been taken to the clinic against her will?

He already had his gun in its holster and was downstairs before he realized he was moving.

"Going somewhere?" Kate said from the living room.

"Not your business," Chris said.

He heard her snort of amusement before the door to the garage closed behind him, but he ignored it, and instead concentrated on sending out a mass text to his other hunters. _Mobilize. Meet at power substation on Frederickson blvd_

He had barely pulled out of his neighborhood when the acknowledgments started rolling in. Whatever was going down at the animal clinic—whatever his daughter was involved in, or up to, or in trouble with—he was bringing along enough cavalry to put a firm stop to it.

 

* * *

 

The alpha had left, the sheriff didn't know where to, and Peter Hale was slumped on the couch, reading a copy of Moby-Dick, paying no attention to either of the prisoners.

The good news—if it was good news—was that the sheriff wasn't in pain anymore. No more grinding pain in his side, no more throbbing in his neck, no more bubbling in his lungs. Even his wrists felt fine under the manacles. In fact, he felt younger and healthier and stronger than he could remember ever being in his life.

The clouds parted outside and a shaft of moonlight fell through one of the dirty, half-broken windows near the ceiling, shining full on his face. Power and abandon flooded him. He threw back his head and howled, yanking repeatedly at his chains. Tonight he could do anything, but what he wanted most was to run, and to tear, and to kill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this chapter was mega-talky, but I promise, Showdown #1 is coming up. (Unless you want to call Laura's unwilling interview with Kate Showdown #1, in which case this will be Showdown #2.) There Will Be Blood, etc.
> 
> Expect the next update by 12pm PST on December 30.


	25. Chapter 25

Stiles would have been less unhappy about six people squeezing into his Jeep if Lydia hadn't immediately announced she was sitting up front on Derek's lap. She settled herself in comfortably, looking very pleased with herself. Which left Allison on Scott's lap and the Electro-Weapon on Jackson's. At least Jackson was as annoyed by this arrangement as Stiles was, and looked like he was going to be an enjoyable source of grumbling all the way out to the Hale house.

They were just making the turn out towards the Preserve when Derek stiffened and said, "Wait."

Stiles slammed on the brakes and stared at him. Lydia somehow kept her perch on Derek's knees without turning a hair or hitting the dashboard.

"I smell him, I smell your dad," Derek said. He sniffed the air. "And werewolves. They brought him this way." He looked south, towards the train tracks. "I'll get out and run from here."

Stiles squawked. "You'll what? You're not going by yourself."

Derek's look was patient. "I can't follow the scent from behind Lydia's hair, Stiles," he said. He hopped out and came around to the driver's side to give Stiles a kiss. "It's okay. I'll go slow—just make sure to keep up."

The werewolf led them through back streets, across the tracks and into the little warehouse district, where he held up a hand for them to stop. Then he disappeared down a narrow alley.

"Fucking fuck fuck _fuck,_ " Stiles said, screeching to a stop and clambering out of the Jeep. "You _idiot_ I told you not—"

Derek jogged back into sight, holding a finger over his mouth. "They're close," he said. "We need to make our plans while we're out of range of their hearing."

"Fine," Lydia said. Stiles hadn't even noticed her getting out of the front seat, but there she was, looking badass and unruffled, a can of Mace in her hand. "Where are they holding him?"

"A warehouse about a quarter mile ahead," Derek said. "I didn't get a look inside, but I could hear and smell enough to tell he's not alone—there's snarling, like an out-of-control werewolf, and I smelled—" He paused, a grim expression coming over his face. "Peter," he said. "My uncle is in the warehouse with him."

 

* * *

 

The animal clinic was dark and silent when the hunters arrived, but Chris had his men surround the place anyway before directing his lieutenant, Ritchie, to break in through the entrance. The waiting room was empty, but a low gleam of light shone from the direction of the hallway. Chris looked around the corner. An office, small, with a single lamp lit on the desk. And empty.

A voice came from behind them. "Can I help you gentlemen?"

Chris whirled, gun ready, to find a dark-skinned man with a goatee watching them. The vet.

"I'm looking for my daughter," Chris said finally, not lowering his gun. "Have you seen her?"

"You mean Allison?" The vet said. "She does occasionally drop by to visit my assistant. But as you can see, she is not here now. Maybe you could come back some other time? Preferably when the clinic is open."

"She's here," Chris said. "Or she was fifteen minutes ago." He flicked his eyes at one of his men. "Hold him. The rest of you, search the place."

The vet stood quietly, not pulling against the grip on his arm, seemingly unconcerned by the gun still trained on his chest. A minute later, Ritchie returned.

"Nothing, sir. The only one here is him." His man paused. "But there's some stuff you might want to see."

The little operating room was lined with cabinets, and his men had pulled one of them open. Instead of the usual vials of anesthetic and antibiotics, it had row upon row of glass jars, filled with what looked like herbs. Chris opened one of them; it smelled pungent, like pine needles mixed with marjoram. Another was clearly wolfsbane.

"Bring him," Chris ordered. When the veterinarian was in the room, Chris pointed at the cabinet. "Explain this."

"They're simples," the vet said. "Herbal remedies. Some of my clients prefer a more organic, holistic approach to animal medicine, so—"

"Cut the shit," Chris said. "These are obviously spell components. So tell me—are you some kind of witch?"

"I am a veterinarian," the veterinarian said.

It was satisfying to let his fist lash out, feel the shock as it connected with the other man's face. The vet staggered, a line of blood forming on his cheek, but he did not cry out.

"Put him in the chair and cuff him," Chris said. His men hurried to comply. When the prisoner was secure, he stood over him and cracked his knuckles. "You've got a hard head, I can feel that. But I'm going to ask my questions again, and if you know what's good for you, you'll answer them openly and honestly."

The vet had a wary look in his eye.

"First: where is my daughter?"

"I don't know," the vet said.

Another punch, this one to the gut.

" _Where is Allison._ "

"I—don't—know."

"Fine. Are you a magic user?"

"I'm a veterinarian."

Chris nodded at Ritchie, who kicked the prisoner in the kidneys. The man let out an agonized groan and his back arched before he fell back into the chair.

"Do you work spells?"

Silence. A blow to the chest.

"Do you cast enchantments?"

Blood was dripping from the vet's mouth now, and his eyes were unfocused.

"He's not gonna talk, boss," his lieutenant said. "Should we put him down? The Code's pretty clear about witches."

Chris shook his head. "Not yet. Get my laptop from the car."

The vet seemed to go into a stupor while they waited, his eyes rolling back and his head lolling loosely on his shoulders. It didn't matter. They'd wake him up when they needed him again.

Ritchie returned with his laptop, and Chris set it up on the operating table. After a minute he got his computer and phone talking well enough to get online. He brought up the map and saw that Allison's phone had moved—it was now on the south side of the tracks. In the warehouse district.

"We're moving out," he said. "Gather everyone up. The vet will ride in the back of my car. Ritchie, you're up front with me."

 

* * *

 

Kate watched her brother's posse pull out of the animal clinic parking lot. What was he up to? She put the SUV in gear and followed.

 

* * *

 

Stiles's mouth was open. "Peter? I thought he was a vegetable."

"He was. Or at least . . . I thought he was." Derek shrugged. "Maybe he is, and he's just sitting in the middle of the warehouse in a wheelchair, staring into space. I'll tell you one thing, though: if my uncle is awake and up, I'm not sure I could take him in a fight."

"But he's so skinny!" Stiles said. "And you're—you!"

"He's a lot older and more experienced than I am, and besides, he's always been an amazing fighter. He was probably the best in the family at claw-to-claw combat when I was growing up. Aside from my mother, but she was the alpha so it doesn't count." And even against the alpha Peter had held his own amazingly well, Derek remembered.

"Maybe—maybe he'll be out of shape," Scott said. "Because of his coma."

His arm was around Allison, who was holding a quiver and a bow in her hands. Derek wondered what help Scott thought he was going to be.

"If anything, _I'm_ the one who's out of shape," Derek said. "I spent the last six years not remembering how to use _hands_."

Lydia cut in. "We're with you," she said. "We'll back you up. And if the alpha is there, she's your target. We'll keep Peter occupied."

Derek swallowed. "You can't come," he said. He looked around at all the humans. All the breakable, _permanently injurable_ humans. "None of you can. It's too dangerous. I'll go in—"

"No fucking way," Stiles said. "We're all coming." He pulled a handgun out of his hoodie pocket.

"What the fuck, Stiles?" Scott breathed.

"I borrowed it from my dad's gun safe," Stiles said. "What? I keep telling him he should change his combinations."

"I hope you tainted the bullets with wolfsbane," Derek said. "Otherwise they aren't going to do you any more good than your dad's gun did him."

"Oh, right." Stiles looked at Allison. "You got any more of that paste?"

She looked stricken. "There might be a little left . . ." She pulled out the jar. There was a thin skim of a dark substance at the bottom, but otherwise it was completely empty.

"Here," Stiles said. He popped the magazine from the gun and emptied the rounds onto the passenger seat of the Jeep. Grabbing an arrow from her quiver, he roughly smeared the tip of each bullet against the head of the arrow, marking the rounds with smears of wolfsbane. "Not much, but it's better than nothing." He looked at Derek. "Right?"

"Better than nothing," Derek said. "But it's not enough. Can you even shoot that thing?"

"Of course," Stiles said, bending back to the work of reloading the magazine. A bullet slipped through his fingers and shot off into the interior of the Jeep. Stiles dove after it.

"Tell the truth, Stiles," Derek said.

Stiles came back up, the errant bullet clutched triumphantly in his fingers. "Okay, so my dad's taken me to the range a couple times. But I know about gun safety, and at least I can distract a big bad furry thing for a few crucial seconds! That might come in handy, right?"

Derek thought he might choke at the thought of his boyfriend in danger from a 'big bad furry thing.' "Stiles, I want you to have the mountain ash," Derek said. "And the humans need to stick together. Circle yourselves with the ash powder if necessary and _wait for me to come get you._ "

"Ugh, fine," Stiles said.

Lydia snorted. "So how are we doing this? Are we just going to storm in?"

"We don't have enough people to surround the place," Stiles said. "I guess we just go in through the front and . . . hope for the best." He looked around. "Uh, weapons check?"

Allison held up her quiver and bow. Scott held up another quiver—which Derek guessed helped explain where all the wolfsbane had gone—and a Molotov cocktail. Jackson gave the pile of electroshock equipment in his arms and jerk, as if to say, _Can you believe this?_ Lydia picked the Taser up from the pile and held it up with the can of Mace. Derek pulled out the silver knife and let his fangs descend.

"Great," Stiles said, holding his pistol and another Molotov cocktail in what he obviously thought was a badass pose. "Lock and load."

"Follow me," Derek said and darted down the alley.

The alley dead-ended in a dirt-and-gravel parking lot that was empty except for a broken-down tractor-trailer rig. Derek hauled the massive sliding warehouse door a couple feet open, wincing at the grinding, squealing noise it made. There was no point in attempting stealth, though; Peter must have heard the humans approaching before they got within fifty yards of the warehouse.

The interior was mostly one huge open space, with some low enclosed offices in the back. The floor was stained and bare except for a couch and a couple of chairs. Two figures hung on the wall the couch was facing, suspended by the wrists from manacles. Their eyes glowed amber and their mouths were full of teeth. Allison immediately aimed an arrow at them, and Lydia held the Mace up and ready. Neither young woman's hands were shaking.

Someone sighed irritably. A head peered over the back of the couch.

"Nephew," Peter said. He looked at the others. "And . . . friends." His smile was smooth and polite. "To what do we owe this remarkable pleasure?"

"You kidnapped my dad," Stiles said, aiming his gun at Peter's heart.

"Ah yes," Peter said, glancing over his shoulder. "I'm sure your father will be very happy to see you in a few hours. Once we wait for the moon to set."

Stiles's mouth fell open. He stared at the snarling figures on the wall. "Dad?" He took a few steps forward. "What did you do to him?"

"They turned him," Derek said. He felt sick.

"Into a werewolf?" Stiles glared at Peter. "I'm going to kill you for this."

Peter spread his hands. "I didn't bite your father. Nor, might I add, did I savage your father's deputy."

"Then who—"

"The alpha bit your father, of course," Peter said contemptuously. "The alpha of the Hale wolf pack." He directed a cutting look over his shoulder at one of the writhing, snapping werewolves. "My associate is the one who attacked the deputy, but creating a new werewolf out of a half-dead nurse was the alpha's decision as well, so you might say the alpha is responsible for both actions."

"So the bite has to come from an alpha?" Lydia asked. She sounded intrigued.

" _Lydia,_ " Stiles said.

"Yes," Peter said. "Only an alpha's bite can turn. Or an alpha's claws, if the injury is to the upper body, and is deep enough."

"So that's what Deaton was worried about," Lydia said. "When he heard about the attack."

"Deaton?" Peter's eyes narrowed and his claws came out. "Is he here?"

"No," Derek said. "Why?"

"Think, nephew," Peter said. "Over the past six years I had a lot of down time. A lot of time to sit, and stare at nothing, and reflect. Whoever set the fire that consumed our house and our family must have known a great deal about herb lore. They must have calculated the amount of wolfsbane smoke that would incapacitate an entire pack of werewolves, including their alpha. Alan Deaton may not have set the fire, but I am convinced he aided the one who did. I plan to rip out his throat for that. Slowly."

"What?!" Scott shouted. "Dr. Deaton would never—"

"Ugh," Lydia said. " _Boys._ " And she pressed the trigger on the Mace.

The effect was astonishing—even twenty feet away, Peter howled, clawing at his eyes, and went down. Hard.

Lydia looked around. "Well? Let's get Stiles's dad already." She walked over to the larger of the two spitting, flailing werewolves hanging from the wall. "Judging by the uniform, I'm guessing this is the sheriff," she said. "If we get him down, can you restrain him, Derek?"

Derek closed his mouth and swallowed. "I—yes. If it's just him, I should be able to hold him."

"If not, Jackson will be standing by with the shock prod," she said.

"Lydia, that's my _dad,_ " Stiles said.

"I know. But he also looks like he wants to eat all our livers. Messily. So until he stops wanting that, he needs to be restrained."

Derek dodged a swipe from the sheriff's foot and yanked at the chain holding the manacles to the wall. It took most of his strength, but the the bracket eventually tore away, and the sheriff dropped free. Derek quickly jumped on him from behind and wrapped him in a bear hug. "So—" he grunted as the sheriff's elbow buried itself in his belly. "So how are we going to get him out of here? And where are we taking him?" He jerked his chin at the the other prisoner. "And what are we doing with the other two?" Peter was still coughing and moaning on the floor, but the effects would probably wear off soon.

"We leave them," Lydia said. "We don't have room for all of us as it is."

"I knew we would need another car," Jackson snapped.

"We could strap him to the roof," Scott said.

"With what?" Jackson said.

" _Scott McCall that is my DAD we are not strapping him anywhere._ " Stiles looked like he was going to cry.

Scott patted him on the shoulder. "Lydia's right, man. He can't ride inside with us. He'll tear our stomachs out."

"This was supposed to be a rescue," Stiles said. "Instead he's a _werewolf_ and he's _crazy_."

Derek sighed. "I think I can control him, even in the Jeep. But I won't have room on my lap for Lydia. So where are we taking him?"

"Home," Stiles said. "He needs an anchor. Maybe we can find one there."

"Let me get in first," Derek said. He lugged the snarling sheriff to the Jeep and folded them both into the passenger seat, making sure the sheriff's limbs were all contained. "Okay, all of you, pile in from the other side."

Jackson ended up having both Lydia _and_ the shock-prod rig on his lap, and he only stopped complaining when Lydia threatened to Mace him next.

"Let's get out of here," Derek said.

"Gladly," replied Stiles, and they took off.

 

* * *

 

Chris brought the vehicle to a stop at the end of the alley, as close as he could get to the last known location of his daughter's phone.

"Okay, Ritchie, you take a team and check out the place. Report back here in three."

His lieutenant nodded, and a second later he and four other men were jogging down the alley.

Chris turned to look in the back seat, where his prisoner was still quietly seizing or something. He knocked the butt of his gun against the side of the veterinarian's face, and watched his eyes pop open.

"Are you ready to tell me the truth?" Chris asked. He caressed the man's jaw with the muzzle of his pistol. "Things would go so much better for you if you did."

"I doubt it," the vet croaked. "You've made up your mind about me already, haven't you?"

"Maybe," Chris admitted. "But you could at least try to change it."

"It's not worth the effort." The vet's eyes rolled back in his head again and he slumped in the seat.

"Fuck," Chris said.

How was this happening? Was Allison just out having fun? Being a teenager? If Kate hadn't said anything—if Chris hadn't started this rampage—would Allison have shown up happy and cheerful tomorrow after school, still pretending she slept over at Lydia's? Beating up veterinarians was hardly Chris's style. Although if the man actually was a witch . . . His train of thought was interrupted by the return of Ritchie and his team.

"Yes?" Chis said.

"I think you should come," Ritchie said. "There's a beta werewolf hanging from the wall, all freaked out, and there's also—" He gulped. "Peter Hale, I'm pretty sure, lying on the floor. Semiconscious. He's got the burn scar and everything. Sir."

"Peter . . ." Chris felt his face tighten. This was going to be an interesting reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note to remind you that you can follow me on Tumblr at lovelornwolf. I always post a notice about updates there, which might be helpful if you can't subscribe to the fic.
> 
> Oh! And you can expect the next update by 11:59 PM PST on January 2, 2013. Happy New Year, everyone!
> 
> ETA: Um yeah so I'm not going to be able make this posting deadline. I'm hoping to have the next update up within the next day or so. Sorry.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. I knew having a concrete update schedule was a terrible idea. I hope none of you stopped reading because I can't make a deadline to save my life. :P

Kate was three blocks behind her brother's cavalcade, lights off, when she passed a very familiar-looking Jeep going the other way.

"Stiles," she said, and turned her SUV around.

Whatever wild goose chase Chris was on could wait. Stiles was her best lead to finding the alpha.

 

* * *

 

The hunters had Peter on his knees, hands manacled, neck in a restraint collar, head hanging like a supplicant's. Peter rolled his eyes up when Chris came in.

"Chris," he sneered. "I thought I recognized that rabbity heartbeat." His eyes were red and his face was slightly puffy.

"Peter," Chris said. He kept his voice calm, but he couldn't help the way his heart skipped. "You're not looking so well. What happened to you?"

"Mace," Peter said. "An unprovoked attack, I assure you. From an uninvited guest." He smiled. "A young lady who makes very rash, high-handed decisions."

"Young lady?" Chris knew his voice had changed.

"Not the one you're looking for, I imagine, unless your daughter has altered completely in the last six years."

"How do you know I'm not here for you?"

Peter gave him a tolerant look. "Please. We know each other too well to try lying. You're here for Allison, it's obvious."

Chris narrowed his eyes. Peter seemed to be implying that Allison actually had been there. "And what are you here for?"

"Like any well-behaved werewolf I'm here under orders from my alpha. Orders I have chosen not to question or ask to have explained."

" 'Well-behaved,' " Chris repeated. "Of course. You always had your own reasons for everything you did, Peter, and you only obeyed orders when it suited you."

"Everyone changes, Chris," the werewolf said quietly. He lifted his face to the light, the burn scar rippled and shiny as ever. "I had what you might call a transformative experience, thanks to you."

"Thanks to me?" Chris shook his head. "Don't tell me you believe that slander. Our family had nothing—"

"Your family had everything to do with it!" Peter had abandoned any pretense at calm and was straining against the restraint collar, face red and jaw bulging with fangs.

Ritchie jabbed him viciously in the side with a shock baton and he fell back, panting and curling up on himself.

"I expected you to hate me," Peter said finally. "I didn't expect you to hate me enough to murder my family."

Ritchie and his men were exchanging confused glances, and Chris knew he had to regain control of the situation.

"Get the other one down," he ordered.

The other werewolf was in full beta shift, and she fought so hard that Ritchie was forced to shock her repeatedly until they could get restraints on her.

"She's new," Peter remarked.

"So the alpha is turning humans?" Chris said.

Peter shrugged. "You should really discuss that with her. I'm not involved in those decisions."

"Were you involved in the attack on the sheriff's deputy earlier this evening?"

"If by 'was I involved' you mean 'did I pull my moon-mad associate off of the deputy before she could kill her,' then yes. I was 'involved.' "

Chris studied the newer werewolf thoughtfully. "And who are you?" he said, half to himself, half to the snarling figure. He pursed his lips. That torn, filthy gray dress might have been white at one time . . . "Ah! Nurse Sykes? Is that you?"

Peter laughed. "Why so formal, Chris? A week goes by and suddenly you don't remember her first name?"

They were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps. Chris turned. It was one of the men who had stayed behind at the car.

"It's the vet," the man panted. "He's gone."

"Deaton?" Peter said. He chuckled around his fangs. "Oh, Chris. The two of you are still working together after all this time?"

Chris shook his head and ignored this. "What happened?" he asked the hunter.

"I'm inside the car with the vet, right? and Cole is standing outside having a cigarette? And then all of a sudden—no noise, no fuss—Cole hits the ground. I get out to take a look and I find this in his neck." He held up a feathered tranquilizer dart. "When I turn around, the vet's just . . . gone."

"Gone?"

"Vanished. The handcuffs were on the seat and the door on the other side of the car was open. But I swear I didn't hear anything!"

Chris looked at Ritchie. "Go sweep the area and report back here." He jerked his head at another of the hunters. "Take Peter Hale into one of the offices for me to interrogate." The sense of things spiraling out of his control was stronger than ever.

 

* * *

 

"The alpha wasn't there," Stiles said as they crossed the railroad tracks.

"I know," Derek said.

His voice was tight and strained. The sheriff hadn't stopped pulling against the full-body wrestling hold Derek had him in, and it looked like the younger werewolf's strength was being tested. Stiles hoped his dad wouldn't get loose—all that rage and those sharp teeth and claws in the enclosed cab of the Jeep would not be pretty.

"So what do we do?"

"First we get your— _ng_ —get your dad locked down," Derek said. "You got a basement?"

"Dude. This is California. No one has a basement."

"We have a basement," Derek said. He shifted his grip on the sheriff. "Had."

"Yeah, but you also had a _mansion_."

"We have a basement," Allison said from the back seat.

"Okay, great," Stiles said. "Everyone has a basement but the Stilinskis."

"And the McCalls," Scott said.

"You have a garage, though— _rghh_ —right?" Derek said.

"Yeah," Stiles said. "But . . . I don't want to chain my dad up like an animal, you know?"

Derek gave him a look that showed he definitely hadn't forgotten the muzzle. Stiles felt himself flush.

"Fine. We chain him up in the garage. What about his anchor? He needs to get control."

Derek sighed. "It's two o'clock—in the morning. He'll be mostly back— _ugh_ —to himself in a few hours. He can work on his anchor when he's himself again."

"I bet it's my mom," Stiles said. "If it's anyone, it's her. Maybe if I remind him—"

Scott coughed uncomfortably. "I dunno, man, that's a touchy subject for your dad when he's in a good mood. And he's in a really, really shitty mood right now. Reminding him of your mom is more likely to set him off even worse, don't you think?"

"It's not—not necessarily a person," Derek said. "Most werewolves—have to work on their anchor for _years_ —before they find it. And if your dad's anchor's complex—abstract— _ngggg!_ —you really think he's in any state to realize it now?"

The sheriff punctuated this thought with a snarl.

Stiles set his jaw stubbornly. "But you—"

"It took me thirteen years, Stiles. _Thirteen_. Before I even started— _ouch_ —started getting control of myself during the full moon."

Lydia patted Stiles's shoulder. "We'll figure it out," she said. "But not tonight. Tonight we should all get some rest."

The sheriff-wolf gave another snarl and she quickly withdrew her hand.

Stiles was opening his mouth when a howl vibrated in the air, a ponderous, weighty sound that seemed to crush him into his seat, smother his breath, and it didn't stop, it just rang on and on and on—

The sheriff gave an answering howl, his voice melding with his alpha's, his body whipping backwards, the back of his head smashing into Derek's nose. For a moment the air was a whirlwind of claws and fur, and then the passenger door smashed open and the sheriff was gone.

A second later, it was over. Sometime during the howl Stiles had blanked out and stomped on the brake, because the Jeep was stopped in the middle of the road, half-turned in the lane as if they'd skidded a few feet.

"Ow," Derek said. Blood was pouring from Derek's nose, drenching the scrubs he was wearing. His eyes were crossed and his hands, when he raised them to his face, fumbled ineffectually.

Stiles felt like his breath was still gone. "Oh god oh shit Derek, are you all right?"

Allison shoved a cloth into Stiles's hands. "To stop the bleeding," she said.

It was stained and greasy, but it was better than nothing. Stiles sighed and pressed the cloth to Derek's nose.

"I'b fide," Derek said, pushing Stiles's hands away and holding the cloth himself. "I'll heal. Quick, we gotta follow your dad."

Stiles started the Jeep again. "Which way?"

"He ran towards Fremont," Allison said.

"Whed I get by dose back, I cad track hib," Derek said.

"Don't you love farce?" Jackson muttered from the back.

 

* * *

 

The office was full of junk, but the hunters pushed enough out of the way to give Chris a place to sit. Peter they threw roughly down on the floor.

"Out," Chris told them. "I'll call you if there's trouble."

"So, Deaton, huh?" Peter said. "Double-crossed by your partner in crime?" The werewolf sounded like this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "Or did you double-cross him first?"

"Double cross?" Chris rubbed his head. "Peter, I really—I mean, I've met the man before, but he's not a hunter. We don't work together."

Peter looked confused. "Your heart—" he muttered. "You aren't lying."

"Why would I be lying? Peter—" He swallowed. "I never lost hope. I always knew one day you'd wake up, open your eyes—"

"How touching." Peter's sneer was venomous. "Still in love, after all these years. So the fire was what, a _crime passionel?_ Couldn't help yourself, the sting of rejection too bitter, 'if I can't have him no one can, and by the way I'll kill as much of his family as I can get away with as well'?" His eyes were amber pools of hatred. "Do you know how many times over the past six years I've longed for mobility just so I could tear your throat out? While you sat in my room and held my hand and _gloated_ —"

"Peter."

"But instead I had to wait for my alpha to find me and torture me back to health."

"Peter. _I did not kill_ —"

A howl reverberated through the office, so strong it was a blow, a heavy-handed wallop to the chest that drove Chris's breath out of him. Peter's eyes rolled back in his head, and from out in the warehouse Chris could dimly hear a commotion, but the force of the howl was too strong for words, too strong for thought, too strong for—

The sound drained away, and Chris drew a shuddering breath. Peter was curled in on himself in full beta shift, muttering " _No, no, no, no—_ " to himself.

The door to the office burst open and Ritchie came in. He was sporting two wicked-looking claw wounds, one across his face, the other on his arm.

"It's the other beta," he said. "She went crazy and broke her restraints."

Chris was already on his feet. "Bring him," he ordered, pointing at Peter.

"We think she still has the collar on," Ritchie said. "The tracking device should be active."

"Let's go," Chris said. "She'll lead us straight to her alpha."

 

* * *

 

They followed the sheriff up Fremont and out onto Route 3. The woods of the Preserve rose around them, trees pressing in on either side.

"He's heading for the house," Derek muttered. "But why?" He'd heard the howl, felt the pull of the alpha. If he'd given in, would he be running to the burned-down ruin of his childhood home as well?

Something moved in the darkness next to the Jeep. A black-furred, red-eyed nightmare, racing along beside them at an easy lope. A mouth opened in a grin and a scarlet tongue lolled out.

"Shit," Derek said. "It's the alpha."

She lunged against the passenger's side, hitting them with a solid bang, and the Jeep rocked on its suspension. Lydia squealed and Scott screamed.

Stiles accelerated but the alpha matched their speed, muscles rolling obscenely under her skin. She gathered herself and leapt, landing with a jarring crash on the roof of the Jeep.

Derek heard someone swear, and then the Jeep gave an almighty lurch to the side and the world was spinning, the road flipping over his head then back under his feet, his seat flinging him sideways and then his seatbelt snatching him back, the passenger door leaning in to give him a spiteful blow on the temple. Then everything was quiet.

 

* * *

 

Kate saw the Jeep roll, but she also saw the alpha racing on ahead, so she shrugged and kept going. She didn't care about Stiles, she cared about werewolves. Specifically, about erasing them from the face of the earth. She put her shotgun in her lap and let her hand caress the handle.

 

* * *

 

Derek looked around. The Jeep was on its side—he didn't even know how many times they'd rolled—and Stiles was slumped, unconscious, against the driver's side door. Derek's seatbelt had held, and so had Jackson's and Scott's, but when he looked in the back seat he saw that Allison was crumpled up next to Jackson, and Lydia was gone.

Derek shook Stiles gently, but there was no response. He could hear his breathing and his heartbeat, though, and that was a good sign. He hoped. In fact, the only heartbeat he couldn't hear was Lydia's. He climbed out through the shattered windshield and looked around. The alpha was nowhere in sight, but twenty yards away he saw the young woman, lying silent and still in the middle of the road. He ran to her and listened hard. Her breathing was shallow, and her heartbeat was weak, but she was alive, at least for the moment. He ran back to the Jeep and lowered it as gently as he could back onto its tires. He wrenched open the driver's side door and searched Stiles's pockets until he found his cell phone.

"Hang on, Stiles," he said. "Just hang on."

He dialed 911.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Uh, I'm out on Route 3, two miles from the Fremont turnoff, in the Beacon Hills Preserve. There's, uh, there's been an accident. Five people, they're all hurt."

"All right, sir, I need you to stay calm. Were you in the accident?"

"Yes, but I'm fine," he said. "It's the others. One of them was thrown—"

"Are they breathing?"

"Yes. They're all—yes." He swallowed. "Just get here as fast as you can." He hung up.

He heard movement in the back seat.

" _Dude._ " It was Scott. "Oh shit, Allison? Allison, are you okay?"

"Don't shake her," Derek said. "She could have a neck or spine injury." He stared helplessly at the humans, at their soft, breakable bodies. He didn't know anything about first aid. He was useless.

The howl came from right behind him this time, an unbearable wave of sound that engulfed him, filled him, drowned him. A massive hand wrapped around his neck, and claws sank into his flesh. Thought fled. He felt the change take him, watched the earth come up to meet his face, and when he stood again it was on four paws. His alpha towered before him, demanding that he follow. He was a wolf; he could do nothing except obey.

 

* * *

 

Stiles came to by degrees. Everything hurt. Nothing made sense.

Scott was talking, saying Allison's name, pleading with her to open her eyes. Jackson was grumbling dimly, asking for Lydia.

Stiles lifted his head and groaned. The passenger seat was empty. "Where's Derek?" he said.

"Where's _Lydia,_ " Jackson snarled. "Why is Allison on top of me, get her off, what the fuck, stop pawing at me, McCall."

"The alpha took Derek," Scott said. "He was here, I heard him calling 911. Then the alpha grabbed him by the neck and howled at him, and he changed into a wolf and they—they ran off together."

"Fuck," Stiles said. The driver's side door was open next to him, and he slowly undid his seatbelt and got out. "Oh jeez, oh shit, oh jesus christ that hurts," he moaned. Every part of his body felt bruised or broken.

"I don't think you should be moving," Scott said. "You could hurt yourself worse."

There was someone lying in the road behind them.

"Lydia?" Stiles said, and then he was running, a hobbling, hitching trot that hurt _everywhere_.

He bent down over her, his hands shaking. There was blood on her face and in her hair, and one of her legs was possibly broken, and—yes, she was breathing, but barely.

"Oh god oh god oh god," Stiles said, and tears were running into his mouth, and maybe snot, too.

"Get out of the way," Jackson said, shoving him to the side. "Lydia? Oh, Lydia, no."

When Stiles got back to the Jeep he saw that Allison was awake and fending off Scott's ministrations.

"I have to go," Stiles said. "They must've gone to the Hale house. I have to get Derek and my dad back. Uh, you guys stay here and wait for the paramedics."

"I'm going with you," Scott said.

"I am, too," Allison said.

"Fine," Stiles said. "But if the Jeep is dead, we're gonna have to walk." He got in and turned the key. The engine ground for several seconds, then finally caught. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Get in," he said.

Allison got in the back, and Scott claimed shotgun.

"Seatbelts," Stiles said.

"No kidding," Allison said. "I've learned my lesson for life."

Stiles checked the rearview mirror. Jackson had moved Lydia out of the road and was laying her gently on the shoulder. Stiles put the Jeep in reverse and backed up slowly until he could see both of them through the passenger window.

"We're going to follow Derek," Stiles said.

"You're insane," Jackson said. "You know that, right?"

"Maybe," Stiles said. "But it's what I have to do."

He put the Jeep in gear and took off in the direction of the Hale house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two chapters left, I think. Maybe three. The next update should be posted sometime before next Monday.
> 
> A reminder that you can follow me on Tumblr for notifications about this fic, and you can also follow the tag "actual wolf derek hale" on Tumblr if you don't want to wade through all my Sterek reblogs.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters, guys! Oh I am so excited.

The Hale house was silent and dark when Kate arrived. A maze of tire tracks scarred the dirt in front of the porch, but whatever cars or trucks had been there were now gone. Even the Camaro was missing—and Kate would love to know who'd taken it and why, because she was pretty sure it hadn't been Laura.

The day before, when Kate had stood looking down at Laura bound and squirming in the Hale family's former living room, everything had felt right. In that moment she knew that the plan she'd set in motion over six years ago would finally wind to a close, all loose ends tied up, all werewolves accounted for and dealt with. But then Allison had blundered into the middle of things, and Laura had escaped ( _how?_ ) and Kate had to face the possibility that Allison had seen or noticed or deduced more than she had been supposed to.

And now Kate wasn't sure she could trust her niece anymore.

It was a bitter thought. The idea behind the hints she'd been leaving—the flash-bangs in the garage, the family pendant so heavily weighted with symbolism and history—had been that Allison would be _hers_ , that she would rescue her niece from Chris's overcautious, pedantic tutelage and shape her into the hunter she was born to be.

Instead, Allison might have stumbled across something she wasn't ready to see yet, and come down on the side of—well, it was impossible that she would side with the _werewolves_. But if she had intentionally disrupted Kate's interrogations, if she'd purposely allowed Laura the chance to break free . . .

Kate searched the ground floor, and then as much of the upstairs as was still intact. There was no one in the house. She went back downstairs and looked around. Where was the alpha? She'd caught sight of it racing away from the wreckage of Stiles's Jeep, and she was sure she'd seen its black, fur-covered form running ahead of her for the first few hundred yards, slipping through the trees beside the road, but after that it had disappeared. She'd just assumed it was heading here. Now she had to admit that it must have had some other goal in mind. Like the passageways, perhaps.

Laura had been the one who told her about the tunnels, one afternoon when they were lying tangled together in a motel bed, sheets rucked up around them, clothes all over the room (afterwards, they would search for their bras under furniture and behind cushions, laughing and bare-chested). For some reason the younger woman had decided to open up a little about her family's history—their insularity, their so-called paranoia that led them to build a house with at least five underground escape routes leading from various places in the house. Laura thought it was funny and weird, and Kate had pretended to think so too, asking if their family had been smugglers or something back in the day. But in her head she was altering her plans, now that she knew that simply setting fire to the house was unlikely to actually trap and kill her prey.

Which is when she decided she needed another unwitting accomplice—preferably one who was more naïve and trusting than Laura. Derek was the natural choice. And when it turned out he thought his uncle Peter was the one carrying on with Kate . . . well, that was even more perfect.

She found the entrance to one of the passageways in the basement, and followed it past the limits of the foundation and out under the forest. It turned sharply a couple times and then split. She chose the right-hand path and almost immediately ran into another fork. She turned right again and followed this passageway to a rusty gate through which she could see the open air and hear crickets, but which refused to budge no matter how hard she shook and kicked it. She retraced her steps to the last fork and took the other path.

Three forks, seven turnings, two junctions and five dead-ends later, she realized she was lost.

 

* * *

 

They ran through the woods—the alpha ahead, Derek and the other beta following after. Their tongues hung out and they grinned with the joy of running. When they came to the smoke-reeking clearing, the alpha threw back her head and howled. And this time Derek howled with her.

 

* * *

 

Derek came back to himself in the entryway of his dead family's house. It was the first time he'd been inside since his sister had thrown him to safety from his bedroom window six years ago.

He was naked.

Someone was prowling and muttering through the other downstairs rooms. He caught a glimpse past the staircase: the sheriff, still in beta form, his uniform stained and ripped, his hands lashing out to claw at the walls, the floor.

Laura came down the stairs, eyes glowing alpha-bright. **"This is where it happened, Derek,"** she said. She gestured all around, indicating the gutted upstairs, the débris-choked downstairs. **"Where our family died. Where we choked, and thrashed, and suffocated. And then we burned."** Her eyes were hot on his face, twin coals smoldering under her brows.

"Why are you doing this, Laura?" His voice was thin and raspy. He dimly remembered howling his lungs out in joy and companionship mere moments ago, and he grimaced.

 **"'Laura'?"** His sister shook her head. **"You don't recognize me? My face and body are different, but I'd expected better from my baby boy."**

He felt his mouth working. The curse really had driven her insane, he thought.

 **"Laura's in here somewhere,"** the alpha said, gesturing at her head. **"Hiding from me. Completely crazy, unfortunately. It's the guilt, I expect."**

"Guilt?"

 **"She blames herself for the fire, foolish child. She saw blond hair and a pretty face and thought she was in _love_. Told a hunter all our secrets, gave her what she needed to close in on us and kill us all. A sin Laura will be punished for, of course; everyone who carries blame will receive their reward."** A heavy sigh. **"Being the alpha is more burden than prize, especially when the time comes to be ruthless."**

A blond haired hunter . . . "Kate?" he whispered. How many people had she seduced?

 **"Who knows,"** the alpha said, waving hand dismissively. **"Her name is unimportant—it's her smell that will identify her."**  Her hands were still over-large, the knuckles gnarled and the fingers tipped with claws.

"Why—why are you doing this, Mother?"

A surprised look. **"I wanted my son here, to watch while I dealt out the punishment our enemies deserve."** Another sneer. **"And to receive your own punishment, of course. At the hands of your alpha."** Her fingers curled around his neck and squeezed, cutting off his air.

 

* * *

 

A random turning brought Kate into a hallway lined with heavy metal doors—cells, it looked like; each with a small barred window in the center.

"Who's there?" The voice was weak and full of terror.

Kate walked up to the cell the voice had come from and shone her light through the bars. Staring out at her was the high school chemistry teacher, Adrian Harris. His hair was unkempt, his face dirty, and he seemed to have lost his glasses somewhere.

"Long time no see," she said.

"Who? What—" He blinked against the glare of the flashlight.

"You probably don't remember, but you were a _lot_ of help to me a few years ago, and I don't think I ever thanked you for that." She smirked. "Unfortunately that conversation will have to wait for another day. Kind of in a hurry at the moment." She turned and began to follow the corridor again.

"Wait, no, please—" he called. "I do remember . . ."

He kept on shouting, but once she turned a corner all she could make out was the desperation in his voice.

She considered. If the werewolves had Adrian Harris, then they might have figured out more about the fire than she thought. They might even be expecting her. She pulled her shock baton out of her belt and checked her shotgun. She smiled. She'd just have to give them more than they'd bargained for.

 

* * *

 

"Let him go, Laura," a voice said.

The alpha stepped to the side, letting Derek fall to the floor. An arrow shot through the space she had just vacated and stuck, thrumming, in one of the stair treads.

Stiles, Scott and Allison were standing on the porch. Allison's bow was drawn, a second poisoned arrow already nocked and trained on the alpha. Stiles was beside her, holding Lydia's hybrid monster weapon, while Scott trailed behind, arms full of car battery and tangles of wire.

The sheriff sidled up next to the alpha and snarled. Stiles's face went tight and pale.

"Let them both go," he said.

 **"Oh, but they're part of my pack,"** the alpha said, caressing the sheriff's shoulder. **"Which means they're mine, all mine, to do with as I see fit."**

"You aren't Laura," Allison said.

"She thinks—" Derek coughed. "She says she's my mother."

"Your mother _died,_ " Stiles said.

"Yes," Derek said.

 **"Yes, I died,"** the alpha said. **"I was the alpha though, so I held out longer than the rest of my family, even after the room I was in became an inferno. I writhed in pain in the middle of the fire, choking on wolfsbane and feeling my flesh burn to charcoal. Finally, I felt the life flow out of me, felt the power I held as an alpha surge away to fill my daughter, and I waited for peace to come at last. But instead of being allowed to fade away or move on, somehow I got caught. Snagged on a tiny piece of metal in my daughter's heart."** She put a hand to her chest and winced as if in pain.

"That's crazy," Scott said.

"I dunno," Stiles said. "Deaton's story about curses was pretty crazy and it looks like it might actually be true. Derek, what do we do?"

 **"Do?"** The alpha smiled. **"The best choice you can make is to do nothing."**

She pulled the sheriff close, her claws digging into the flesh under his chin. The sheriff didn't struggle or pull away; instead he nestled close, baring his throat and scenting her.

 **"You see?"** she said, staring at Stiles. **"He's mine. Not that I really care about him. Maybe I'll just—"** Her hand tightened on the sheriff's throat. A trickle of blood ran down his neck and he let out a confused whine.

"Please," Stiles said. "Don't hurt him."

 **"Then stay where you are, and don't get in the way."** She raised her head. **"My other newborn is here."**

The back door banged open. Running feet pounded on the floorboards and the nurse-wolf appeared, tongue hanging out and a grin on her face. She howled in feral glee.

The alpha frowned. **"That's enough of that,"** she said.

Her other hand caught the beta by the back of the neck, claws sinking deep, drawing blood. The woman spasmed, eyes wide, and when the alpha withdrew her hand, the nurse was fully human.

 **"Much better,"** the alpha said. **"Jennifer, it's time for the guilty to be punished."** She smiled kindly. **"We'll start with you, since you're right here to hand."**

"But I've done nothing," Jennifer said, panting, a horrified expression on her face.

 **"My daughter remembers differently,"** the alpha said.

"Your daughter?"

 **"Laura. The woman you taunted for days via anonymous text message? The woman you were planning to lure to a meeting with my brother, so he could kill her and take the position of alpha?"** The alpha cocked her head. **"Does any of this ring a bell, Jennifer?"**

"I'm sorry," the nurse gasped. "I didn't mean—"

The alpha's hand flashed out, and Jennifer crumpled to the floor, holding her face.

 **"Your plan failed, so I'll be merciful,"** the alpha said. **"If you'd actually killed my daughter, you would be dead right now."**

"Yes, I understand," the nurse whimpered. "Thank you."

**"The next to be punished is down below. Jennifer, go fetch him."**

The nurse stumbled to her feet, hand still pressed to the side of her face, blood dripping between her fingers, and left the room.

 

* * *

 

Kate had left the cell block behind at least a minute ago, and while the corridor she was following curved and turned occasionally, so far it had not split or forked. She hoped that meant she was heading back to the house, or at least to a usable exit.

Another turning, and Kate came suddenly face-to-face with Jennifer Sykes. The other woman had a hand pressed to her left eye, and Kate could see blood seeping sluggish and thick between her fingers.

"They've gathered you up, too?" Kate said, without thinking.

"They?" Jennifer said. "You mean the alpha? She's gathered all of us. Even you."

"I came here under my own steam, thank you," Kate said.

"I'm sure you think you did."

"I've played Laura Hale for a fool for the past six years. What makes you think—"

"Laura Hale is the least of your worries," Jennifer said. Her one-eyed gaze mixed pity with resignation. "You've let her green eyes cloud your judgment so completely you don't even realize how thoroughly you've been played." She shrugged. "I have an errand to run. If you know what's good for you, you won't be here when I get back."

"You're running _errands_ for your captor?" Kate said.

"I'm doing what I must," Jennifer said. "As we all do, when there are no choices left."

 

* * *

 

Stiles was shaking, his finger jumping against the trigger of the shock weapon he was holding. He lowered it to the floor and pressed his fists to his face, biting his knuckles until he tasted blood.

"Stiles," Derek said. "Stop. It'll be okay."

Stiles felt Derek's arms close around him, but he couldn't stop shaking.

"She has my dad," Stiles said. He knew he was crying, and he hated himself for it.

"I'll do whatever I can to protect him," Derek said. His eyes were serious, his tone firm.

The alpha was holding the sheriff very close now, his head tucked under her chin, and he had relaxed, as if lulled by his alpha's scent. Her claws were still at his neck, though. Stiles shuddered.

"How?" he said. "She's _your_ alpha, too."

 The nurse came back into the room, dragging a tall, pale man by the wrist. She gave him a kick and he staggered forward to collapse almost at the alpha's feet. Stiles's mouth dropped open.

"Mr. _Harris?_ " he said.

"Please," Harris said. "Let me go. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

 **"Our Mr. Harris did something very wrong,"** the alpha said. **"I'm sure he had almost forgotten it when I tracked him down. Thought he was free, that his past would never come back to haunt him."**

She let the sheriff go and bent down to drag a talon along Harris's jaw.

He swallowed. "No, I never forgot," he said. "When it came out in the news—the fire, all the deaths—I knew it was my fault. If I could go back in time—"

 **"But you can't, Mr. Harris,"** the alpha said. Her tone was uncompromising. **"None of us can."**

She raised her hand, claws shining cruelly, and Harris closed his eyes. Derek jumped forward and caught the alpha's wrist.

"Stop," Derek said. "Stop hurting people. The nurse, Mr. Harris—whatever they did, punishing them won't bring back the ones we lost. Besides, if anyone killed our family, it was me."

"It's true," someone said. Kate Argent stepped out of the shadows, shock baton out and shotgun ready. She was smiling at Derek. "He carried the poisoned, fiery gift into this house with his own two hands." She looked at the alpha. "I thought about getting you to do it," she said. "You would have done almost anything for me then, right, Laura?"

 **"Laura's not here right now,"** the alpha said.

Shoving Derek back, the alpha leaped, too fast for the eye to follow. A loud bang from the shotgun; a brief, intense crackle from the shock baton. And then Kate was screaming.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh I hate this but I'm tired of looking at it so here it is! please don't hate me

Kate was sure the wolfsbane pellets had caught Laura in the chest but they didn't even slow the alpha down, and now Laura was running into her like a freight train and those wicked claws were buried in Kate's neck

and Kate was on fire. Everything was fire: her hair was fire, her clothes were fire. The air she tried to breathe was fire. Flames billowed in every direction. She couldn't move, something had stunned her, turned her limbs into floppy, boneless slugs—but the pain was not dulled one iota as her skin singed and blistered, cracked and crackled and crisped, curling back to uncover her muscles, her nerves, her organs.

Everything burned. Her bones blackened and snapped in the intense heat and she was screaming, she hadn't known anyone could scream like this because she hadn't known it was possible for there to be pain like this. Her tears sizzled on her charred cheeks and her eyes twisted and boiled in their sockets. Her tongue caught fire and then the flames were racing down her throat and swallowing her voice.

The pain engulfed her in a red wave that went on forever and ever, amen.

 

* * *

 

"Didn't need the tracker after all," Chris said as he pulled the car to a stop, just out of sight of the Hale house. "Could have guessed they'd head here."

"Or you could have asked me," Peter said in a bored voice from the back seat. He was trussed up in metal, arms held against his stomach, legs hobbled.

Chris frowned back at him. "You'd give up your alpha that easily?"

Peter raised an eyebrow. "If I thought you could actually hurt her? Interesting question." He shrugged. "But you can't."

A scream split the air.

"Move," Chris said. "Move, move, move!"

 

* * *

 

The alpha lowered Kate to the ground, withdrawing her talons from the woman's neck. Kate had stopped screaming, but now she was limp, sprawled on the filthy floorboards, eyes wide and vacant, a line of drool extending from her open, horrified mouth down her cheek into her hair.

"Not sexy at all," Stiles said.

Derek stared at him. Stiles shrugged.

"It annoyed me how sexy she was," he said. "It makes me happy to know she looks so awful right now—I'm sure she'd hate having her enemies were seeing her like this." He looked at the alpha. "Is she—"

 **"Sleeping,"** the alpha said. **"Unconscious."**

The alpha's shirt was torn near her right shoulder, and the flesh underneath was black and mangled. _Wolfsbane-tainted buckshot,_ Stiles thought. He hoped they'd have enough time to counteract both the curse and the poison. Then he remembered the small silver knife.

"Shit," he said.

The last person to have the knife was Derek—and Stiles knew better than to hope the werewolf had had the presence of mind to hang onto it in his wolf form. Their only hope of breaking the curse without killing Laura was lying on Route 3 in the pocket of Deaton's loaner scrubs.

Derek took his arm. "It'll be okay," he muttered in Stiles's ear.

"Why was she—" Allison was asking. She looked sick. "What did you do to her?"

 **"I let her experience a fraction of the pain I went through in the fire,"** the alpha said. **"The tiniest fraction, and it was too much for her to handle."** The alpha's mouth bent into a smirk. **"Not a big deal, since she'll have the rest of her life to build up her tolerance."**

"What do you mean?" Allison said.

The alpha ignored this. **"She should wake up soon. Jennifer, shackle her."**

The nurse kicked away Kate's shotgun and shock baton, then picked a length of chain up from behind the staircase and bent over her twitching body.

"Drop the shackles and back away," a hard voice said.

Allison's dad was standing in the doorway flanked by two heavy-set, cold-eyed men. All three of them were holding guns. Mr. Argent had his gun trained on the nurse, who had frozen in a half-crouch, seemingly caught between terror and rage. She glanced at the alpha, a question in her eye.

 **"Chris,"** the alpha said. She sounded almost pleased. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder. **"And you brought Peter, too."**

Mr. Argent glanced back. "I told you to wait in the car," he said.

"Sorry," Peter's voice said. "I would've, really, but it didn't sound like much fun."

The hunter snarled and glanced around the room. Then: "Allison?!"

"Hi, Daddy," Allison said. She raised a sheepish hand to wave hello.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Chris said. "I was so worried." His eyes roved over her from head to toe. "Are you hurt, sweetheart?"

"I'm fine, Dad," she said.

"You are grounded, young lady," he said. "No more sleepovers. And your mom is going to hear about this. Get in the car."

"Daa-aaad," she said. "You're embarrassing me in front of my friends."

" _IN THE CAR. NOW._ "

The alpha didn't even seem to move, but one second she was standing in front of the the stairs and then next she was holding Allison tight against her body in an almost loving grip.

 **"I'm sorry, but Allison can't go now,"** the alpha said. **"I need her here to keep you from shooting everyone in your hot-headed way."**

Allison looked cool and composed, even though she'd been yanked halfway off her feet and had a set of sharp teeth and sharp claws inches from her throat. Scott's mouth was open and working like a fish's. Derek's was pressed in a firm, uncompromising line that made Stiles think he was about to do something rash.

"Let her _go,_ " Mr. Argent said.

 **"Your daughter is in no danger,"** the alpha said. **"It's your sister that needs your help right now."**

Mr. Argent gritted his teeth. Stiles could see the muscle in his jaw jumping.

"Let them _both_ go," Mr. Argent said.

 **"I'll let you walk out of here with your sister on one condition,"** the alpha said.

"What."

 **"You give me a reason why I shouldn't kill her right now."** The alpha's gaze was bright and challenging. **"Tell me why your sister doesn't deserve to die at my hands this minute for murdering me and my family six years ago."**

"She didn't!" Mr. Argent said.

 **"Admitted from her own mouth, Argent,"** the alpha said. **"Less than ten minutes ago, in front of all these witnesses."**

"It's true, Dad," Allison said. She looked awkwardly up at the alpha. "Please," she said. "Don't kill my aunt in front of me."

 **"Give me a reason,"** the alpha said. **"A reason, or I tear out your aunt's throat."**

The sound of three guns being cocked was very loud.

The alpha raised an eyebrow. **"You couldn't stop me,"** she said. **"And you know it. I could take this one's life—"** (she caressed Allison's throat with a clawed hand) **"—and then your sister's before any of you had time to pull the trigger."** She glared around. **"A reason! Now."**

"You won't kill her," Allison said. Her voice was strained and thick, but it did not tremble. "Because it's too easy." She cleared her throat. "You want her to suffer, like she made you suffer. You want her to relive the fire every time she closes her eyes—like you do. Like you have for the past six years."

The alpha's claws tightened convulsively, digging into the young woman's neck, then relaxed. **"You're right,"** the alpha said. **"You're right."** She looked at the men squeezed in the doorway. **"Take your sister and get out before I change my mind."**

Mr. Argent gave his hunters a curt nod, and they walked carefully over to grab Kate. When they picked her up she whined piteously and began to sob.

 **"Your gun,"** the alpha said. **"Chris? Drop it and kick it away."**

He glared at her, but he did it. Peter pushed past him into the house.

"A little help?" he said.

The alpha jerked her head at the nurse, who made quick work of Peter's complicated-looking metal straitjacket.

 **"Now,"** the alpha said. **"Who's next in line for punishment?"** Her eyes settled on Derek.

"No!" Stiles said, fumbling for a Molotov cocktail, or the handgun, anything.

"Stiles," Derek said. "It'll be okay." He leaned in and kissed Stiles on the lips. Stiles wished it didn't feel so much like a goodbye.

 **"Hold him,"** the alpha said.

Peter and Jennifer each took one of Derek's arms, forcing him to his knees.

 **"My baby boy . . ."** the alpha said. She laid a hand on his cheek. **"I was in labor for sixty hours with you. Did you know that? And when you finally came you tore me wide open. So much blood, so much pain."**

Her open-handed slap cracked across Derek's face, and his nose was broken, blood washing down over his mouth and chin. Scott was holding Stiles back now.

"Look away, man. Don't," he was saying.

Stiles was gritting his teeth so hard he though his jaw would break. "No," he said. " _No._ "

 **"But it was worth it,"** the alpha said. **"Children are always worth it. Until they tear your heart into shreds."** She put a hand around Derek's throat and lifted him, off his knees, then over her head so his feet couldn't reach the ground. **"It's time for all of the guilty ones to pay. You first, then Laura—"**

"No," Derek grunted, hoarse and awful against the hand around his windpipe. "Not—Laura—" And he kicked the alpha in the face.

She laughed in delight. **"Yes, Laura,"** she said. Then she threw him through the front window.

Stiles stumbled out the front door in time to see the alpha leap through the window after Derek and pick him up again by the throat.

An instant later the yard lit up like it was daylight, and a megaphone squealed. "FREEZE. This is the sheriff's department. Lie down on the ground with your hands on your heads."

Another voice shouted " _Derek!_ " and something shiny whistled through the air, spinning end over end to bury itself in the alpha's injured shoulder. She roared in pain, but Derek grabbed the handle of the silver knife and yanked it out before she could do anything. He slashed at her wrist and she dropped him.

"Mother, I'm sorry," he said, and plunged the blade into her heart.


	29. Chapter 29

_"No,"_ Stiles was saying somewhere, but Derek couldn't turn to look because the alpha had her hand around his throat again.

 **"It's time for all the guilty ones to pay,"** she was saying. **"You first, then Laura—"**

His head was swimming. He remembered that other night six years ago: the char catching in his throat, the bittersweet reek of wolfsbane, and Laura, stooping out of the smoke and ripping him from his bed. Shouting, her face distorted with emotion. Shaking him when he didn't react, and for an instant he thought there were tears in her eyes—which was strange because Derek was the crybaby of the family. Laura was strong. Laura never cried.

"No," Derek grunted. He could barely speak. "Not—Laura—" His foot caught the alpha in the face.

She laughed, ignoring the trickle of blood running down her lip. **"Yes, Laura,"** she said.

And then she threw him, glass shattering around him, the thin wood around the individual panes snapping like matchwood. That night six years ago he'd fallen two stories and broken his leg, a sitting duck for when Kate showed up; today it felt like he flew twenty yards, tumbling end over end through the air. Out on the periphery of his awareness he could hear strange vehicles gathering in a ring around the property, and whispered orders— _You take the rear. There may be hostages. Wait for my signal_ —and he had time to wonder about that. Humans, probably. More humans to step into harm's way. For his mother's anger and his sister's claws to mow down.

Then the ground leaped up and caught him, left shoulder first, so he heard the gentle, dry snap of his collarbone, and the alpha was on top of him again. His sister's body, his mother's disembodied rage.

Derek could hear Laura's heart beating in her chest as she ground his face into the dirt. Pulse slightly elevated, but not much—it wasn't like any of this had been real exertion for an alpha werewolf. Laura's mouth snarled at him, but it was his mother's eyes glaring at him, his mother's anger squeezing the breath out of him.

It was okay. Dying at the hands of his alpha was no more than he deserved after killing his entire family. But if he let his mother's vengeance snuff him out, there would be no one left to protect Laura, and that was unacceptable. Laura deserved to live.

He wasn't even sure where the knife came from. One second his hands were empty; the next his fingers were closing around the silver haft and then then knife was sinking in, sliding easily between her ribs and into her heart.

There was a subtle _click_ as the point of the knife brushed against something tiny and metal inside his sister's chest. A soundless explosion. The tension went out of her hands, and the anger left her eyes, leaving behind pain and confusion.

Her lips moved. "Derek?" A tiny bubble of blood formed around the word and then burst. His sister's eyes rolled shut and she fell forward onto his chest.

"Laura?" he sobbed. He shook her and wailed at the way her head hung, lolling limp against her shoulder. _"Laura!!"_

"The knife," he heard Stiles saying. "You have to pull the knife out, she needs to _heal_ —" Stiles was shoving an arm between them, between Derek and his sister's body, and before Derek had time to react the young man's clever fingers had plucked the knife clean out and he was dancing away.

"Okay," Stiles was saying. "Okay, we're calm, stay calm, just wait—"

Laura's first breath was horrible, a blood-drenched, rattling wheeze, but to Derek it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He felt her heart pick back up again, _lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub,_ and then her eyes opened and she looked at him (only his sister this time, no one else behind her eyes), just looked at him and smiled.

 

* * *

 

It was Jackson who had saved the day in the end. He'd found the knife in the pocket of Dr. Deaton's extra pair of scrubs (still lying in the road where Derek had discarded them), and when the sheriff's department and the ambulance arrived at the scene of the accident he'd somehow convinced them that something was going on at the Hale house, and that they needed to give him a ride. (Stiles was pretty sure the "convincing" had more to do with the Whittemore name and less to do with Jackson's powers of persuasion.)

Deputy Sanders had come along as well. Apparently Sanders's daring break for freedom was destined to be the stuff of legend at the hospital—it had involved barricading her door, busting out her window and rappelling down the side of the building, all with at least two broken ribs.

"I knew your dad needed me," she said. "I couldn't stay away. Anyway, Melissa helped, too."

Mrs. McCall had picked her up on the side of the road and driven her to the Hale house. "I didn't really believe her story, but I figured—if I can't convince her to go back to the hospital, it's better for her to be driving in a car with a nurse than trying to hitchhike into the Preserve without one."

Stiles couldn't stop touching Derek. The wounds the alpha had inflicted were taking a while to heal, which at least gave the EMTs something to fuss over. Derek refused to go to the hospital, but he let Mrs. McCall sew up the worst of his injuries.

"Stop scratching," Stiles said, swatting at Derek's hands. "I know the sutures itch, but you can't claw them out yet."

"I hate them," Derek whined. "They're awful. I'd rather just keep on bleeding."

"Such a baby." Stiles sighed and ruffled Derek's hair. "At least your _my_ baby," he said.

 

* * *

 

The sheriff had come back to himself right after his deputies had arrived. They hadn't seen him transform, but they could tell there was something off about him—and of course there was the fact that he'd disappeared into the forest earlier that evening, and also the fact that he claimed not to remember what had happened.

"I woke up right here in the Hale house," he told them. "Must've been unconscious."

There was also the fact that he appeared completely uninjured, although his uniform was filthy and torn. And the possibly related fact that he refused to undergo a thorough medical exam.

Peter and Nurse Sykes had slipped away, no one knew where.

Once the first round of questions was over, he sat down on the stairs in the entryway of the Hale house and sighed. It felt like he'd been away from the human world for years instead of just one night. He was staring at his hands when his son found him. The sheriff had recognized him before he even came in the door—by his walk, by his smell, by the sound of his heartbeat. It all meant Stiles. It felt like he had always known him to this level, but that wasn't possible, because until the day before he'd been a normal human with blunt, useless senses.

"I'm not safe," the sheriff mumbled. He had fingernails again, but he remembered the gnarled claws that had pushed out of his fingertips, the fangs that had filled his mouth. The urge to rip and tear and kill. He remembered not knowing his own son—or not caring.

Stiles dropped down on the bottom step. "What was that?" He gestured at his ear and smiled ruefully. "Useless human senses, what can you do?"

The sheriff cleared his throat. "You shouldn't be around me. I'm not safe."

"Fuck that noise," Stiles said. "You aren't getting rid of me that easily. Even though we're kind of different species now, you're still my dad."

"Stiles . . ."

"I'm not losing you, Dad." He flung out an arm. "This whole thing? This showdown? This was me, fighting for you."

The sheriff couldn't look at him. "I joined the sheriff's department in 1980," he found himself saying. "Fifteen or so years before you were born, eight years before I even met your mom."

"I know," Stiles said.

"That's thirty-one years. Thirty-one years where my main purpose has been to protect people. This town, your mom. You." He shook his head. "I can't stay, the way I am. I can't put the people I've sworn to protect in danger like that."

Stiles grabbed his shoulder. "Dad. Listen. You're not alone. You have a pack to take care of you. You have an alpha to keep you in line. It's probably not going to be easy or fun, but—"

"My alpha is homicidal, and my 'pack' isn't any better."

"Not _that_ alpha," Stiles said. He turned "Hey, Laura!"

"What?!" was the shouted reply.

"Uh, can you come here a minute? You have a new pack member who needs your wisdom and guidance."

Laura appeared in the doorway. "Oh, hey, Sheriff," she said. "Good to see you back in your right mind."

The sheriff had a brief, intense memory of pressing himself against Laura's side like he was trying to burrow into her flesh, and he knew his cheeks had turned bright red. "Laura," he said.

She grinned. "It's okay, Sheriff," she said. "Neither of us was ourself last night." She smells a little bit like blood and sweat, but mostly like home.

"I'm going to go find Derek," Stiles said. "Make sure he hasn't ripped out his stitches. You two should, uh. Catch up." Then he was gone.

"Sheriff," Laura said. "I'm so sorry this happened. The Bite is supposed to be a gift, not an . . . an assault." She bent down to look him in the eye. "But I promise things will work out."

"'Work out.'" The sheriff laughed. "I'm not human anymore. How can things work out?"

"Things will work out because you have a son who loves you, and he'll never give up on you. And because _I_ will never give up on you."

The sheriff put his hands over his face. "If I ever did anything—if I ever hurt anyone—" His throat closed for a second. "Oh god, if I ever hurt _Stiles_ —"

"You won't."

There was something not-quite-true about the way Laura said this, but he felt himself trusting her anyway. Against all the sense he had.

"Sheriff, I'll make sure you never hurt anyone." She bit her lip. "Unless you need to. You are law enforcement, after all. Can't pull your claws completely."

"I'm resigning," he said. "I have to."

She looked at him calmly. "It's your decision. Just—can you agree to take a short sabbatical? A month. That's all you need, just to show yourself that you can do this. That you don't have to lose control, even during the full moon." She took his hand. "I can show you how to do that. I can show you how to live a full, productive, joyful life, even though you aren't human anymore. Can you trust me that long? One month."

He sighed. "Okay. A month." He'd let Quigley figure out the scheduling end of things. Once Sanders was back on her feet, she'd be acting sheriff, most likely. The department wouldn't like it, but they could make it work.

"And just think," Laura was saying. "You don't have to worry about dying in the line of duty anymore. Stiles doesn't have to worry about your health. You'll be Beacon County's secret weapon."

That had a nice ring to it, he supposed. "I guess I could live with that," he said.

 

* * *

 

They were lying in bed that night, not talking, just curled around each other.

"Derek?" Stiles said.

"Yeah?"

"I just realized—my dad can hear us in here, can't he?"

"He's still at the station."

"Yeah, but I mean—at night. From his room."

There was a pause. "Yeah, probably." Derek sighed. "It'll take him a little while to get used to his new senses, but . . . he'll probably be able to hear anything that happens on the property."

"Shit."

Derek could hear Stiles chewing on his lip.

"So what are we going to do?" Stiles asked finally.

"About what?"

"About _sex._ I know Dad said he didn't want to hear or know anything about anything, and god knows I'd rather he never listened in either, but—"

Derek laughed. "Well, he's not here right now."

"True."

"And he often works late."

". . . also true."

"And once I get a job and a place to live—"

"Wait, you're moving out?"

"I never really moved in," he said.

"Right, but I thought—"

"Stiles. As soon as you're an adult, you're welcome to move in with me. And until then we'll be together as much as your dad will allow. But I need to learn how to live as a human again, and that entails . . ." He swallowed. "That entails getting my own apartment, and looking for a job."

"Ordering pizza whenever you want."

Derek smiled. "Paying bills."

"Playing video games for days straight."

"I don't have any video games."

"Oh, dude, we have to fix that."

They were quiet for a while. Derek was imagining trying to be a responsible adult. He thought Stiles was imagining all the video games they could play together.

"Before you do anything," Stiles said. "Before you sign a lease or—or start screening roommates or whatever, will you talk to Laura?"

"You're right," Derek said. "I should. She's my alpha."

". . . I'm sorry about your mom," Stiles said.

"I don't think it was actually my mom," Derek said. "Just her anger. Her pain. I'm pretty sure the rest of her went someplace better. The parts of her I remember and love."

"What do you think will happen to Kate?"

Derek felt himself wince. "She'll suffer," he said.

"She deserves to," Stiles said. His voice was cold and angry.

"Yes," Derek admitted. "She deserves a lot of pain. But . . . she could turn."

"What?"

"An alpha's claws can turn you, if the wound is deep enough . . . and high enough on the body."

"Oh, shit." There was a pause. "Oh, _shit,_ " Stiles repeated.

"Yeah. Which would leave her suffering for a very, very long time."

"How long?"

"We live about twice as long as humans. So she could be screaming and burning for the next hundred and fifty years."

"Jesus."

"If her family lets her live. Hunters are pretty merciless when there's the possibility that one of them might turn."

"Let's talk about something else," Stiles said. He sounded sick.

"How about . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Well, your dad isn't here."

"Uh-huh."

"So how about we _do_ something else?"

"That sounds promising. Tell me more."

"How about I show you?"

And he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done. My god. That is the longest thing I've ever written.
> 
> (Isn't that sad? I need to re-evaluate my life.)


End file.
